Retake of the Practice Gleim

This past week was intense and tough.  However it would make a really boring read for you.  HA... I think I just penned my first entry for the Edward Bulwar Lytton Prize.  In all seriousness this past week was all about studying the Gleim to retake the test on Thursday.  I studied, and studied hard.  I took each chapter separately and memorized what I didn't understand.  I took practice test after practice test with my software and would get a range of results from 75% to 95%. But I never achieved anything lower than 75.  These were done with 60 random questions out of the 700 and some odd from the FAA question bank.  The Day of reckoning came very quickly.  On the morning of, I went into the Academy about an hour prior to test time of 10:00 to make sure my brain was warm for the exam.  It turns out we only have 50 question on the practice.  I did about 3 practice tests with 50 questions and would get scores over 90%.  

"Ok... this is good."

I thought to myself that everything will be okay if I don't get a lot of charts to decipher.  Our instructor came in and asked if we were ready.  Those taking the test all got up and walked to the class for our exam. 

Ok... 50 questions...  I need to get 80% to pass, and at 2 points a question, that means I can get 10 wrong and still pass.  I went through all the questions and placed a mark next to the ones I wasn't sure I had right or had guessed on.  I was relieved to have gotten a test with only 2 charts to interpolate.  When I completed the test and had all my answers I counted up all my marks... 11?!  Uh Oh.  I went back through all the marked questions and thought long and hard whether I wanted to change my answers.  None of the key words I had memorized for various questions were jumping out at me.  I turned my test in and my instructor got out his red pen.  I was envisioning my paper to look like someone had slaughtered a small animal on it with the amount of red ink that was about to be used.  I had marked 2 questions in the first column and got 2 wrong.  OK... not bad... Sort of expecting that.  The second column produced an additional 6 incorrect answers.  I had 3 questions marked in the 3rd column of answers.  This isn't looking good.  BUT... I aced the third column!  WOOHOOO... When I heard the words "congratulations, you passed"  from my instructor, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders that you never realize you are carrying until its lifted.  I felt so good I thought I could jump and fly without a plane.  Sweet success!  Must celebrate this weekend... but not too much...  I have to start working on Instrument Gleim book now.