It looked like a dentist office. The exterior was brick with several small boxy windows. On the door were three white numbers that read “901.” Despite there being no indication of what the building really was, I was well aware of its true purpose. As I opened the heavy glass door, the wind blew hard against it, as if to prevent me from entering. It was as though the world was trying to protect me from the arduous task that lay ahead.
I finally muscled the door open and slipped inside. The room was dim, making it difficult for my eyes to adjust to the lighting. To my right, I noticed the words “prometrics,” the name of the testing facility, written across a flawless glass door. The hairs of my hand stood on end as I grabbed the cold metal handle and pulled the door open.
As I stepped inside the room, cool air enveloped me. To my immediate right, I found a set of rather insignificant, stacked lockers. I placed my belongings in a locker labeled “6,” hardly leaving enough room to allow the small locker door to close shut. I stepped between a pair of anxious students and took a seat in a blue padded chair with wide arm rests. I sunk in the chair as I sat down. I noticed the carpet in front of my chair was a much darker shade of blue than the surrounding carpet, as if someone had spilled her coffee. I laid my head back against the firm wall behind me and stared ahead at the wall across from me which had a sheet of paper listing items restricted from the adjacent room. My mind drifted as I tilted my head and began counting the perforated square tiles on the ceiling. The water bubbler next to me gurgled as a large bubble floated to the top. My fellow students were not talking, and the only noise was the thumping of my nervous foot drumming on the thick carpet floor.
Becoming restless, I stood up to use the restroom. I pushed open a heavy wooden door and flipped on the light switch, simultaneously turning on both the overhead light and fan. Rust was beginning to accumulate around the knobs of the sink. As I cranked one of the knobs in a clockwise fashion, water gushed out from the faucet. I splashed some of the cool water on my face. Rubbing my eyes, I stared at myself in the tall, smudged mirror that hung above the sink. “This is it,” I said, as I turned to go sit back down in my soft blue chair.
“Come here, please,” a short woman with a round face was signaling that it was my turn to enter the sealed off room. Once inside, I noticed the abundance of technology present. There was a biometric finger scanner on the desk in front of me, two large monitors with live video feed, a wireless telephone, and a large desktop computer. The woman instructed me to place my index finger on the scanner which looked like a model skyscraper that had a roof of glass. I rolled my finger on the scanner and was then directed to stand on a square mat in front of the door that led to the testing room.
There it was straight ahead of me, the cubical where I would sit for the next seven and a half hours. I strolled over and sat down in a plush office-style chair. I used the lever beneath the chair to adjust the height to my preference. Directly in front of me sat a black keyboard. Many of the keyboard’s numbers and letters were beginning to wear off. Behind the keyboard lay a massive monitor and a grey Microsoft mouse with a long winding cord that extended to the back of the cubicle. The pale grey blank walls surrounded me, keeping my mind from escaping the dreaded situation.
I could hear the continuous low hum of the air conditioner as it struggled to keep the room cool. With 12 students in a high stress situation, we were dependent on the air conditioner to perform its duty. I slid a pair of stiff yellow headphones over my ears. Pulling on the plastic ends, I adjusted the headphones to make them more comfortable. Green pencils and a fresh page of printer paper lay in front of me, anxious to be utilized. It was time; I turned on the monitor screen and began my test. I could feel the anxiety in the air, but there was no escaping now. The bland brick building had lured us in, and we were now its captives. The only way to escape was to complete the test that lay on the screen in front of me.
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My MCAT day experience (essay)
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