You Think Your GMAT Nightmares Are Bad?
UPDATED FOR THE NEW GMAT IN 2024
(Friendly warning: this GMAT blog post is mostly useless, and will not actually help you conquer the GMAT, Executive Assessment, or any other standardized test. Sorry.)
If you ask any longtime waiter or bartender, they’ll tell you that they routinely have “restaurant anxiety dreams.” Nearly a decade after my last stint as a bartender, I’m no exception: I still get crazyass nightmares in which I’m in an unfamiliar restaurant, working simultaneously as both the waiter and the bartender. My tables are always filled with customers who insist on ordering drinks that don’t actually exist, like Screaming Vikings (with the cucumbers slightly bruised) or Nutless Monkeys (blended, with a banana garnish) or Steel-Belted Radials (easy on the ketchup).
And then I end up literally walking uphill to return to the bar and uphill again to deliver the drinks back to the table. Restaurants in my dreams are always like M.C. Escher paintings, which makes it really hard to not suck at waiting tables.
In another version, an old high school friend was sitting at one of my tables, and he ordered a pulled pork sandwich on whole wheat bread. (Note for anybody who isn’t from barbecue country: pulled pork on whole wheat is heresy.) When I tried to enter the order into the computer system, the computer exploded, hissing and bubbling and sending sparks flying around the dining room.
Thankfully, I no longer work in restaurants or bars, so these dreams are just plain funny – and I never have anxiety dreams about my life as a standardized test tutor because my charming GMAT, LSAT, EA, and GRE students rarely manage to stress me out. Those poor students, on the other hand, aren’t always so fortunate.
Luke and the GMAT Vermin Menace
One of my all-time favorite GMAT students (let’s call her Luke, since she calls me Yoda) also had some of my all-time favorite GMAT nightmares. If the GMAT hadn’t caused some legitimate suffering in her life, her dreams would be freaking hilarious.
In the first version of the dream, Luke was taking the GMAT exam in a dilapidated shack filled with spiders and mice, as she hunched over a dimly lit computer screen. The vermin were everywhere, crawling over the keyboard and monitor as she tried to think clearly about the proper way to conjugate the 13th verb in a 100-word GMAT sentence correction question.
As she became more fed up, Luke begged the GMAT proctor to please do something about the insects and rodents crawling all over her during the test. But instead of responding in a useful way, the proctor – a cranky, creepy, old librarian type, peering at her skeptically through his dusty monocle – threatened her instead of offering help: “If you complain one more time about the testing center,” he said in an ominous tone, “I’ll take 40 points off your score.” Then he laughed maniacally, and poor Luke woke up in a cold sweat.
(Don’t worry: this can’t actually happen in reality. GMAT proctors don’t really have the power to take 40 points off your score, and rodent infestations are presumably rare in GMAT testing centers.)
Monsters, Ghosts, and Unfair GMAT Test Sections
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of Luke’s GMAT nightmares. The next night, she had another version of the dream. She was back in the same dilapidated shack with spiders and mice. But this time, the shack was haunted. The feeble lights on her computer would flicker on and off, and she could feel ghosts brushing against her neck as she tried to figure out whether answer choice B or C was actually more parallel.
Several times, she turned around in a panic – and saw nothing. She was supposedly alone in the GMAT testing center, but she could hear thumping sounds in the attic as she tried to decipher the GMAT’s nastiest, book-length critical reasoning question – which was, of course, written in wingdings.
To be honest, this isn’t the most confusing GMAT critical reasoning question we’ve ever seen.
But poor Luke wasn’t finished with her GMAT night terrors. A few nights later, she was back in that same damned shack, but this time, the GMAT unexpectedly had a brand-new section: Artists from Around the World. When she complained to the proctor, he just said, “Well, miss, remember that there are some monsters lurking in the testing room, and we do expect you to keep yourself safe and focused during the GMAT exam.” Yeah, not too helpful.
When Luke got back into the testing room, she was completely alone and could see the shadows of ghosts lurking behind the computer screen. She got a 480 on the GMAT that night, and the proctor was absolutely disgusted with the result. “But there were ghosts in there!” Luke protested, to no avail.
The Moral of Luke’s GMAT Nightmares
Is there a lesson we can take from this story of standardized test terror? First of all, it should remind you to stop stressing about completely unrealistic scenarios. Your testing center won’t be inhabited by poltergeists… probably. Even if your anxiety is as intense as Luke’s, try to remember that your dreams aren’t reality.
Second of all, Luke’s GMAT nightmares show that test anxiety is really, really normal. While her dreams may have been a little (a lot?) over the top, I’ve seen tons of students (and waiters) with similar struggles. Whether you’re taking the GMAT, LSAT, GRE, or any other test, you aren’t the only person freaking out – even when you’re asleep.
But finally, the main lesson is this: if a standardized test is keeping you up at night, I suppose that it could always be worse.
WANT to learn more about test anxiety and struggling with the gmat?
Do you have test anxiety? Read our Beginner’s Guide to Test Anxiety.
Another story about an experienced tutor who overcame test anxiety on his GMAT exam.