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- Aug 14, 2005
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I wish I were making this up (and I apologize if this is long, but it's an insane read). So Im taking the August MCAT. We begin at the scheduled time doing PS. Im going at a great clip, my mind is rocking, and I'm hitting my triads like CLOCKWORK. 40 minutes into the test, I'm immersed in darkness. The power went out (no windows).
The proctors scramble to make calls to MCAT and campus security. She tells us to get up and take a 10 minute break.
This 10 minute break turns into a 30 minute one. She decides to stroll us over to another buidling. It has small creaky desks, small bathrooms, and only 3 windows. Still no power or AC.
We do the rest of PS, however, it's so overcast there really isn't enough light to see well. As you can imagine, I'm also taking this test as both my rythm has been broken, feelings of being cheated by fate, and nagging thoughts of whether I should void this test or not. The proctors call time. 5 minutes early.
By this point it's only getting darker out. It's so bad you would literally have troubles reading the page, much less do so in a comfortable fashion. The hallways in the building are powered by generator, so she allows people to move their desks out there to take the test (FIRE HAZARD). Pretty much everyone wants to do it out there, so eventually she begins actively discouraging people from doing so.
Anyway, this hokey pokey takes waaay too much time. She gives us our PS sections back, allowing us to have 5 more minutes to make up for what was taken. Now this is pure BS. 5 minutes won't do squat for me if I'm answering a passage I can hardly remember.
After we finish PS, the light in the (crowded) hallway dies. 5 minutes later, all the power is restored (still no AC in the building I guess). She makes all the students in the hallway move back into the class with the remaining students. She decides not to move us back to the original location even after lunch break. Regardless, we begin the Verbal section at 1 PM.
After verbal, the proctors (btw, the proctors were both female, but one was more dominant than the other so when I use the pronoun "she" I am referring to this proctor) make the announcement to return from lunch in 30 minutes. We all tell her that lunch is supposed to be an hour. She tells us that she has decided to make lunch shorter so that we dont stay after 7 pm. As you can imagine the uproar over this decision was immense. She completely came across as making a selfish decision, because SHE didnt want to hang around. THIS IS MY LIFE WOMAN!
This lunch was composed of me rushing a lunch, being able to do very little relaxing or studying, and dashing to the men's bathroom to go #2. Since these bathrooms are so small, I had to endure the humiliation of running over to the women's bathroom.
I take my writing section. At 530 PM we conclude by taking the BS section (in other words, we finished the exam at 7 pm). As you can imagine, the physical and emotional drain of the entire day has left me completely exhausted. I can tell I'm having troubles focusing because of my fatigue.
I'm a grown man of 22 and I came home from this exam trying to keep from bawling. I have never felt so cheated and robbed in my life. I worked so hard and sacrificed so much. I could understand if this were due to a personal failure on my part, but I felt as though I came in having done everything right. I expected and pushed myself to the limit to ensure this exam would be a feather in my cap for an application. I instructed everyone with me at this exam to write a letter to MCAT detailing our almost unbelievable misfortune. I have no idea how this situation can even be reconciled. I hate being negative, but this experience is very crushing. I feel as though 3 months of sacrifice have been flushed down the drain, along with a year of future earnings. It's crazy how much a day can change your life.
The proctors scramble to make calls to MCAT and campus security. She tells us to get up and take a 10 minute break.
This 10 minute break turns into a 30 minute one. She decides to stroll us over to another buidling. It has small creaky desks, small bathrooms, and only 3 windows. Still no power or AC.
We do the rest of PS, however, it's so overcast there really isn't enough light to see well. As you can imagine, I'm also taking this test as both my rythm has been broken, feelings of being cheated by fate, and nagging thoughts of whether I should void this test or not. The proctors call time. 5 minutes early.
By this point it's only getting darker out. It's so bad you would literally have troubles reading the page, much less do so in a comfortable fashion. The hallways in the building are powered by generator, so she allows people to move their desks out there to take the test (FIRE HAZARD). Pretty much everyone wants to do it out there, so eventually she begins actively discouraging people from doing so.
Anyway, this hokey pokey takes waaay too much time. She gives us our PS sections back, allowing us to have 5 more minutes to make up for what was taken. Now this is pure BS. 5 minutes won't do squat for me if I'm answering a passage I can hardly remember.
After we finish PS, the light in the (crowded) hallway dies. 5 minutes later, all the power is restored (still no AC in the building I guess). She makes all the students in the hallway move back into the class with the remaining students. She decides not to move us back to the original location even after lunch break. Regardless, we begin the Verbal section at 1 PM.
After verbal, the proctors (btw, the proctors were both female, but one was more dominant than the other so when I use the pronoun "she" I am referring to this proctor) make the announcement to return from lunch in 30 minutes. We all tell her that lunch is supposed to be an hour. She tells us that she has decided to make lunch shorter so that we dont stay after 7 pm. As you can imagine the uproar over this decision was immense. She completely came across as making a selfish decision, because SHE didnt want to hang around. THIS IS MY LIFE WOMAN!
This lunch was composed of me rushing a lunch, being able to do very little relaxing or studying, and dashing to the men's bathroom to go #2. Since these bathrooms are so small, I had to endure the humiliation of running over to the women's bathroom.
I take my writing section. At 530 PM we conclude by taking the BS section (in other words, we finished the exam at 7 pm). As you can imagine, the physical and emotional drain of the entire day has left me completely exhausted. I can tell I'm having troubles focusing because of my fatigue.
I'm a grown man of 22 and I came home from this exam trying to keep from bawling. I have never felt so cheated and robbed in my life. I worked so hard and sacrificed so much. I could understand if this were due to a personal failure on my part, but I felt as though I came in having done everything right. I expected and pushed myself to the limit to ensure this exam would be a feather in my cap for an application. I instructed everyone with me at this exam to write a letter to MCAT detailing our almost unbelievable misfortune. I have no idea how this situation can even be reconciled. I hate being negative, but this experience is very crushing. I feel as though 3 months of sacrifice have been flushed down the drain, along with a year of future earnings. It's crazy how much a day can change your life.
