Hard Work

I've been studying real hard...honestly! Well sorta... I just had my UMAT (Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test) today in Ellerslie. Because the rules are so strict I thought I better arrive there early for a change. We got to Alexandra Racecourse and sat there in the carpark, but there was no one else! That's when I realised we were probably at the wrong racecourse! So we decided to try the other one over in Ellerslie...and yeees that's the one! All the health science, biomed and a few high school students were standing outside waiting to get in.

I went over to join my friend Henry and this other guy (his name's uncommon but I should've remembered it!!). We were waiting outside for at least half an hour with everyone crowding around the entrance. Finally when it was 1.30pm people started filing in. We had to show our admission tickets and photo ID to the registration desk and then take our seats in the main room. It took me a while to find my seat!

There was an Indian lady standing on the stage who was the 'BIG BOSS' while there were supervisors standing at the end of every row. The main supervisor lady would call out to each row to check each supervisor had followed her specific instruction:

"Supervisors hand out answer sheets....Supervisor one?"
"CHECK!"
"Supervisor two?"
"CHECK!"
And so it continued right up to supervisor fifteen...

There were three sections that we had to do separately, and we weren't allowed to go back to another section to complete once time was up for it.

Prior to the test I read that we weren't allowed stopwatches into the room so I thought I'd at least try bring a watch just in case, as I didn't know whether they would be giving any time indications. At least they warned us when there was only 10 minutes remaining in each section...except for one section....

"OK everyone time is up put your pens down"

<Everyone is in a state of confusion and panic>

"Woops sorry! I mean you have ten minutes remaining!"

Towards the end this girl in my row had a coughing fit too! Because we were in this convention room there was this kitchen behind us and I could smell something delicious being cooked! There was also a little rattling going on and then..

(a little) CRASH! (a dropped glass maybe?)
and then someone saying
"Oops!"

What about the test? Well the test wasn't too bad but because you only have about a minute and a half to answer each question and for some questions you have to read half a page of text, it meant having to work really fast! The most difficult section was the last section which involved patterns and sequences.

At the end of the test I was waiting outside with Michael my German friend, when my old intermediate school friend (who knows Alice!) Lance came up to me to say hi! WOW he has changed! He's now taller than me with longer hair and glasses! That was good catching up with him.

We finished at about 5.30pm, which was way past the time I had expected to be finished by, so I was trying to find the bus stop along Great South Road, and thanks to Alice (my guider!) I managed to find it after checking out four different bus stops! I just missed four Downtown buses along the way though... I ended up back in the city at about 6.30pm, which meant I missed out on watching the Rutherford College Advanced Debating team defeat Dio to be in the GRAND FINAL! CONGRATULATIONS YOU GUYS!!!!!!