TOEFL

Sometimes shit happens. When you least expect it. And by shit I am referring the shitty games luck, fate, providence play with us.

Did you read the previous post where I cribbed about some stuff? Did you get any bad vibes from it? You should have told me if you did. I didnt. I swear I was just venting steam off. Didn't think the blogging gods would be paying attention to this little obscure patch of mine..and pass it over to the toefl gods.. and play a game of kabaddi with me.. but I digres..

I finished my TOEFL exam Friday morning. Yes, a good news right. . It is. Only, something really weird happened there and I have to talk about it.

Weird as in, totally freak somebody out kind of weird. As in, it rained epiphanies on my head kind of weird. And I am still not sure about the nature of the epiphanies. So weird that half this post is going to be all about it.

Lets start at the beginning ..So, my husband dropped me off at the test centre. He wisened up and escaped the duty of sitting in the car waiting for me I bid him goodbye and dutifully went inside, telling myself. This is it.. this is the last but one hurdle before me. (the other being my SOP, dont even ask about it)

Some of you might be aware that ETS requires us to write and sign a confidentiality agreement. But I am sure nobody ever wrote that with a pencil. Yup. The whole paragraph attesting to be me, and not someone else and agreeing not to disclose. In pencil. Even my signature.Apparently, the people at the center teach kids and they seem to have a no-pens policy! It was hilarious to write and sign a "confidentiality agreement" in pencil. Think about that. Whats the point?

This really pleasant looking old man squinted and told me to stand in line. A nervous woman joined me in a few seconds and I had to comfort her. She was giving me the jitters. She went to the loo three times in five minutes and I am not even sure why. Anyways.. I went in. Got my seat. Headsets work. Pencil works. Scrap paper (yellow!)..All set.. Go!

I survived the reading section. I was in fact left with time to revise.What followed after that was the longest and most boring listening section ever. I tell you, it didn't feel half that long during my practice tests. I kept listening and answering and the questions kept coming and coming!

See this is where my epiphanies/realisations started. At one point I really got scared that maybe I would never finish the section at all. I listened to so many short conversations.. my mind was full of stuff. I actually looked forward to the break. If you are from India, then you would know that answering 3 hour exams is no big deal. And there you never get a break, only your water bottle, pens, pencils and eraser keep you company. I never really appreciated the need of a break during an exam. Not until today.

Phew! But then, it was a mandatory ten minute break!! After the first four minutes, I got real impatient. I walked to and fro, read all the messaged on their bulletin board, analysed  the one and only Monet water lillies painting that they had (not genuine ofcourse! cheap imitation (don't you forget the pencil), but enjoyable nevertheless when you have nothing else to do). And I was hungry!! Yes. The two sections increased the activity of my gastronomic juices. That place didnt have anything else other than water. Pft. This was when I blamed myself for not packing atleast a chocolate in my bag. Or a snack bar. Or atleast chewing gum.

Just you wait. I haven't spoken about the whacky part yet.

Right after the break started the speaking section. Can't say I was not looking forward to it. I was. With a mixture of apprehension-fear-humor and a little bit of satire thrown in. Thats how you feel when you are faced with six listening tasks and hate the sound of your voice mocking you on the headset. I am not exaggerating here folks.. I didn't think that the headsets would let me hear my voice on the d-day too..I thought they were there sothat I could hear the questions and not hear what the half of the other population was speaking about. 

Thats the other unlucky thing. Of the twelve people in the room, 6 started the speaking section at the same time as I did. It was really annoying having to listen to my questions, concentrate on my answers, not concentrate on my voice and ..wait.for.it.. block their sound. Seriously, I didn't want to be influenced by their accent, choice of words or persona. There was diverse variety of all three - a couple of them made up their mind that the best option was to yell into the mike.. what if the comp didn't pick up their voice? surely, it couldn't miss a decibel level of 80, dude.

Ok. Here is the shittiest part. I generally do not use this word on my blog.. but I think what happened qualifies this treatment. I finally finished task 6 of the speaking section. I thought I did a fair job and was really waiting for the writing section, my favorite of all times. So, picture this. I finish my answer. Press continue. Press next. Press ok. And Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. The screen doesnt change. I wait some more. The screen flickers. I let out a sigh. Finally. The mouse pointer turns into n hourglas.. yes.. I am waiting?!! It goes blank.

What do you think I did? Of course I panicked. However unsure I was of my answers, I was not prepared to take the whole test again. And then I look around and there is no proctor in the room (the squinty guy who was supposed to be there and wait for us to raise our hands in case of trouble). Now WHAT do I do? Should I wait till he comes? Time waste. Should I go in search of him? Surely, I am not allowed to leave my chair right? Should I do nothing? I was freaking out.

I gave up and went in search of him. He asks me my name (real scared. I didnt fiddle with the CPU man.. why do you need my name?) goes to his terminal.. comes back to mine and tells me the comp died (I figured that out) and he has to restart. The question just tumbled out of my lips. What about my test? He says - we'll see. Very reassuring G'pa. Very. I just might give you a medal for that. I persisted. I wanted to prepare myself mentally if I had to reapeat the whole test/section or even question. He then told me that the comp takes a backup of the answers every two minutes and stores it in an external server So "We'll see".


We did see. It was brought back to life. I had to repeat the last question. I was glad it wasn't the whole section. I re-told my answer. Hit continue. And the whole thing happened to me again. Including the proctor disappearing and me going in search of him.

He did the same fiddling stuff again. I was skeptical this time. But it did come back to life. I did repeat the last question again. you wont believe what happened next.

It died on me one more time. Yup. Imagine that! This time I totally freaked out. When I found the guy I told requested him, I wanted another system. I can't keep repeating the same question over and over.. what a waste of time. And think of my emotional torture.... The freakiest part was, the systems that were not occupied had some problem or the other. I was left with my system. Or wait for someone to finish their test.

I tell you. The time between his reviving the PC again and my taking the test once more was the most unfortunate time of my life. The first time the system died, I thought I was being given a second chance. Maybe the TOEFL gods didnt like my answers. The second time, it was annoying. The third time it was kind of "don't know whether to cry or laugh" kind of situation. Seriously. I swear! Why me? Why my system? (Of course, another girl in the same room had a minor disturbance. But not the same as my PC). Why do I have to repeat the damn task 3 times?? At that point of time it seemed like the whole universe was trying to get back at me 'cos I mocked/cribbed about it. It was only a couple of minutes later that I realised I was losing my peace of mind over an isignificant glitch in a PC. I firnly resolved to wait till a system was free, if there was one more problem with mine.

I was saved. After giving me a minor heart attack for a few seconds, where the screen sort of froze on me and wouldn't move to the next section, the writing section started. phew! you could do that again. Phew phew phew. 

So there my friends.. after this "uncalled for near manic depression episode" I finished my test.Got to say, I had a good laugh about it in the car with my husband.

Of I forgot. The enlightening episode had a moral.Many infact. Like, do not take computers for granted. Thank the guy who decided to incorporate the "take back up every two minutes" part into the code. Learn to love the sound of your voice. You may never know how many times you have to hear it. Peoples voice caries into the headset, even if it is padded, even if you are talking. So practice blocking that in your mind. And try not to sit beside a guy who starts, ends and includes 20 "ummmm...."s in his talk. Please. That is imperative.Also, do not shout into the mike, even if your ears are not sensitive,or you like the way you sound, or you are nervous, or you just feel like shouting, or you fear your words wont reach the comp.. please do not talk loudly into your mike. The mike is quite powerful and it adjusts the sound level according to your voice (they make you do the voice test-sound adjustment thingy twice).