So, the test is over. And let me just say thank you for all of the prayers and well wishes.

The process of taking a standardized test is quite phenomenal. Did you know that they electronically scan your fingertip and take your picture in addition to requesting picture ID? Fascinating. I can’t imagine needing such drastic measures, but I am also incredibly guilt prone, which makes it difficult for me to imagine just how conniving and dishonest some people can be.

Anyway, the test went well. I did have a minor hiccup after taking finishing the written section. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t take my break at my station and so the proctor came in and asked me what I was doing. Talk about stressful. For a moment I wondered if I was going to be allowed to finish. She was actually quite nice (and I’m sure amused by my prolific) and told me it was fine, but that if I was going to take a break, I had to leave the room.

When I finished the quantitative section I was seriously stressed out because I kept thinking about my answers and wondering if they had been right, which made it hard to focus on the passages I had to read for the verbal section. Thankfully, I have not had any timing issues with the verbal in practice, so I knew I could take things a bit slower, which I did. There were things on the quantitative that I had never seen before. One of the last questions was about the area between four tangential circles inscribed within a square. None of my books ever covered those questions. The bad news: I was so flustered that, even though I could figure it out logically, it took me a minute or so to even begin to think. The good news: seeing something you’ve never seen before on the GMAT is a good indication that you are doing well.

Another hard thing about this stupid test is that they have “trial questions”, and these questions are just on there to see if they are good test questions. Talk about lame. So you could get a really hard question and have no idea how to do it (well, not no idea) even if you are doing poorly, or you could get a really easy question towards the end and think that you totally bombed the test because if you are doing well (for your level), no questions (no matter what level you are at) should be easy at the end. My question is where do they find people who are this cruel? I feel like the test writers are practiced in the art of torture. The verbal section went well, but once again, I wasn’t totally sure how I had done. I knew I had done okay, but I wasn’t confident that I had done as well as I had during the practice tests.

Another great part about this test is that once you finish the test, you have to decide whether to record your test score (make it official) before you see your score. Hitting that stupid button to record my score at the end of the test almost felt like I was deciding whether to jump out of a plane without a sure knowledge that I had a parachute in my pack. Absolutely terrifying. But I hit it and my score popped up and relief flooded through me. I got a 710. For those of you who have no idea what that means, it’s good. I feel very blessed and I am so glad that I will not being doing that again…ever. Now onto the applications.

P.S. I hesitated to put my score up because it feels a bit inappropriate…kind of like putting up how much money I make. I decided to put it up because I know some of you will want to know and rather than have you die of curiosity or make you ask, I thought I’d just tell you and be done with it.