Yeah, that's supposed to be my concentration face, comfy outfit, serious gaze and overall tired attitude.
The GMAT is the test that every blue pilled, controlled by the system normie takes when they want to major in Business, Economics, Finance or any of those Gradute degrees. Not every University requires you to take the GMAT, but most of the European ones do, especially when you want to major with them, wether it is as a Master of Science or to get an MBA
This test evaluates how fit you are to study at a graduate level in english, testing your skills in Analytical writing, verbal reasoning, integrated reasoning and quantitative reasoning, the four main skills you must have to succeed in business - according to the traditional schooling system that is.
This particular test is possibly the hardest I have ever taken, not only because of it's lenght and trick questions, but also because I'm going to be competing against the top Korean, Chinese, Indian and European students to get into one out of three of the best Business Schools in Europe.
The test not only evaluates how skilled you are on this subjects, but also how well you reason and use logic to reach answers that most people don't. For startes, the questions are in english, so if you don't have a C2 english level it's highly probable that you won't be able to answer most of them, especially because they are worded so one little word changes the meaning of the whole question and the answer depends on your interpretation, which is different on every case.
The test works with percentiles, meaning and a special algorithm that fixes questions for you depending on how well you answer the previous questions. This means that the harder questions you answer correctly, you will get even harder questions and if you answer incorreclty, you will have a penalty reducing your overall score. The percentile part means that it doesn't matter how well you do on the test (200-800 score), but how well you do compared to other test takers, and these test takers are getting better year after year; this means that, for example, a test taker that in 2010 got a score of 650, in 2019 that score would be worth around 570 (just an estimate to exemplify). So yeah, I have to gitgud, really good.
Which is why my afternoon looked like this, and most likely it will be comprised of this, steem and puppy poop:
I took this test 7 years ago but it was an unofficial one that my employers back when I was in corporate made me do to asses if I was top talent material and I was worth investing in. I got a 660 without any preparation - and I was top talent material, whatever that means - so when I decided I wanted to study a Masters and I saw I needed to have a GMAT score of more than 550 to get into Europe's univiersities I thought to myself piece of cake but, turns out that if you want to apply for a scholarship (even though the score is not mentioned but highly implied) you need to get at least a 650-700 score to be even considered for it, so naturally I'm aiming for 720.
This means I have to study, or at least dust my brain off so I'm fully prepared for this challenge against the chinese and the indians who are worldwide known for acing this test.
Today I took my first test simulation to see how good I am doing and well, I couldn't be happier considering that I still need a lot of prep to do and to be honest I haven't had much time to study, understand concepts and get used to the quesiton format, tricky grammar and the race against the clock.
This is good, very good if you ask me, but I'm not sure it'll be good enough to get a scholarship for the 40k Euro tuition for any of the Business Schools I have in mind.
I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but no scholarship means no Masters for this nomad.
So I guess I'll keep trying, getting ready and putting my hoodie on, headphones up, serious gaze in and tired attitude within until I get a 780/800 in the test simulator, which will give me enough confidence so in the test date, I nail my 720.