Lazy Day

Today I didn’t feel like doing anything. I wish I could have kicked my feet up and lounged in my snuggie like Bruno Mars, because that would have been awesome. After a weekend filled with classes and socializing, all I wanted to do was sleep through the day. Unfortunately, Tuesdays are my test days (what with no classes and all).

So I mustered up some energy, dragged myself out of bed and after a quick shower, got to it. I did a Knewton free CAT today. Here are the results:

Q 47 (77%)

V 43 (96%)

Scaled Score: 730

On the quant side, I failed miserably near the end. For the life of me I could not do basic algebra… my mind was not on yet. This led to me spending almost 4 minutes on an absolute value question, which ate into a bit of the cushion I had built up, and another 4 minutes on a simple ratio question. I got the ratio question wrong, and after wasting that time, I had under 2 minutes left for each of the remaining  8 questions – I got 5 of them wrong.

On the verbal side, I only got 4 wrong, but one of them was because I misread the word “exports” as “experts.” I spent 5 minutes on that critical reasoning question, reading and re-reading the argument and all the options. I felt like I was the subject of some cruel prank because none of the options made sense to me. In the end, I selected the option that had the most semblance of rationality to it, and ended up getting it wrong (of course). After all that, I somehow still finished the verbal section with about 8 minutes remaining.

I suppose that all things considered, the test went ok. I was definitely very sluggish while writing, and it showed in the errors I made. I was expecting a 650 ish score when I was done based on how crappy I felt. Luckily I did not write essays before this one – I’m not sure I would have lasted through the CAT if I had, and I’m certain I would have gotten a much lower score had I written the essays. I feel like I skimped out on some practice by not writing the essays, but I plan on making up for it down the line.

This experience definitely showed me that I need to be well-rested in the last couple of days leading up to my actual test date, and I need to be focused and ready to go. I’m also a bit concerned that while I’m consistently getting 700+ scores, I’m not yet consistently hitting my goal of 740. I know these tests are not the best indicators, but with just under 3 weeks left, I’m hoping to see stronger results on the remainder of the practice CATs I intend to take.

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