GRE : MY TEST DAY EXPERIENCE, Prometric, BANGALORE. It was 27-10-2014,Monday and i was all set to

GRE : MY TEST DAY EXPERIENCE, Prometric, BANGALORE. It was 27-10-2014,Monday and i was all set to give my GRE. Woke up at 6am and left my home at 8. It was during the peak hours and the traffic was bumper to bumper. Not having had my breakfast, i decided to have it near the prometric as my exam was at 12.30( i thought i had a lot of time) . The journey was so hectic that it took me 3.5 hours to reach the centre and i quickly rushed inside the prometric on an empty stomach. I was very tensed due to which my head started aching a little bit. Seeing my condition, a lady ( one of the test taker's mom) offered me two rotis which was filling enough. By then the formal security check had started which encompassed emptying all the pockets with just a passport and a locker key ( given by them to place your stuff) in my hands. There were a lot of cctv cameras and every measure to avoid fraud was taken care of. It was 12.35pm and i was asked to start the exam . They had provided me with a noise cancelling and a normal headphones(which were not really useful for me). Section 1: Essay and Argument. Section 2: Quant : I started the math section fine, encountering questions that were very similar to those I saw on the Powerprep. Except for a few meandering questions here and there which consumed more time, the rest was fine. 30 seconds were left and i thought i had attempted all the questions. To my horror, i totally forgot to see the 20th question. DISSAPOINTED. Section 3: Verbal: Frankly speaking my proficiency in English isn't very good but trust me i did prepare a hell lot of words. But nothing helped me. TC and SE were moderate but the RCs were really long and as usual with a lot of philosophy, History and literature RCs going around. The scary part was that I could actually imagine my scores dropping from 340 to 330 to 320 with every feeble attempt. Break: I went outside and just thought about my next course of action. I knew that I had to come out of this even if it meant getting only a 300. Section 4: The questions were getting easier and i thought it was due to my bad performance in the previous one. Section 5: More and more long RCs and i was almost done with this Stephen King's book. The sentence structures were really convoluted but with very simple vocabulary. Section 6: Quant :) : For those thinking how ETS math can be, it can get much harder than the powerprep and princeton. I somehow managed to answer a few Statistics related problems in this section and the time was up. Final score: 310(q164 v146) (not completely satisfied, but still a decent score) Preparation Time : 10 days. Final Verdict: Having a prodigious vocabulary may help you in life but for the GRE, prepare to be disappointed .Be absolutely mentally prepared for the worst case scenario and also have a lower limit score so that if you hit between the limits you are okay. A few tips: * Eat something before you reach your test centre. (Although you'll find Starbucks,ccd and others near the prometric, its better to have at your home.) *Don't forget to carry your confirmation letter and Passport. ( Actually that's the only thing you need to carry.) *Plan yourself to be at the test centre atleast 1.5 hours before your start time. *For Verbal, focussing more on the usage of the words would help you than learning a thousand words. *Get used to the long and boring RCs. * Don't neglect Quant. You might come across a tougher section than your practice tests. *Be ready with your list of universities to apply which you'll be asked to select after the exam. Finally I wish each and every one of you the best of luck for the GRE. Hope you do get your target score.