Well, its finally over.. not that I spent too much time poring over ridiculously long wordlists and endless piles of practice tests.. but the two weeks that I spent on GRE prep were probably the longest ones of my life. my partner in crime and I raced thru the wordlists, and actually managed to finish all of them within a week. I know not how., in spite of spending a lot of time in IIT as well.. it seems like all our spare moments were devoted to feverishly writing down weirdish words, moaning over annoying ones like venal, venial, ventral.. condign, consign, conflate, contumacious and the like... puzzling out ways to remember wacko words like legerdemain, mulct, promulgate and lien. We discussed and quizzed each other while walking to and from lunch ,.. over plates of hot chapattis , while waiting for a bus, and even in the bus- while other passengers gave us strange looks...
The next week of my life seems like it revolved entirely around practice tests- from Barrons' book, Princeton and lyceum material, Barrons' and ETS' practice cd, and a ragtag of online tests from random websites. With each and every test I ended up with widely varying scores.. some sending me into transports of delight, and resulting in me bounding all around the house with unstinted glee, while others reduced me to a messy puddle of tears ... A crazy fortnight indeed.. culminating in an afternoon fraught with tension and nail-biting suspense.. The test being scheduled for one in the afternoon, we got there by 12.30 and waited with shaking hands and trembling voices for us to be called in. Time wore on, without any signs of a summons.. each second increasing my desire to puke my guts out.. after an hour of forced meditation, and desparate attempts to calm my mind, I was summoned to the pit of doooom!
Oh well, what more is there to be said.. I walked through the raging fire and came out unscathed - unless you count a chipped nail and a bumped forehead! It was ok I suppose , anyway, the important thing to note is that I have survived the ordeal, and now have a week more of the holidays left to enjoy, without sharing the feeling of Damocles- of walking around with a sword hanging precariously over my head.
0 comments