9. D-Day, aftermath and the result
28th
January 2020 was the D-Day for me. I had a “days counter” widget on my home
screen that kept ticking each day and showed me precisely how many days I had
in hand before this crucial day comes.
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| The day counter widget |
The reason why
this post exists is so that I can give you a glimpse of what the day was for me,
what to anticipate and how my overall exam went. I would prefer if you read
this post a few days before your GPAT exam so you know what to expect.
I’m assuming
that you have your GPAT exam is coming up in the next few days and these are
the questions running through your mind:
- Have I studied enough of the syllabus and solved enough questions to successfully give this exam?
- Am I going to chicken out and freeze when I see the question paper in front of me?
- Am I going to be able to solve all the questions in time?
- Am I ready?
· Believe me when I say this that you will never be able to complete and remember 100% of the syllabus that is mentioned in the syllabus copy. Your aim should be to study and revise the maximum amount that you can. By this point you must have solved over 1000+ MCQs and that will give you enough practice to be able to give the exam. By now you must have revised all the topics endless times and that is going to be sufficient. What is the most important right is that you have confidence and faith in yourself.
Before the D-Day
Before you head out to give the paper you need to have an aim and a few calculations as to how you’re going to achieve that. What that means is that you need to set your mind on a score that you wish to achieve. The scores you set for yourself must be higher because you have to assume that some of your answers will be wrong and our plans do not always work out how we plan them to.
Eg: If you wish to qualify and get a good score your aim must be to score about 220 marks.
If you wish to have a great rank, then your aim must be to score about 360+ marks.
Next step would
be to keep the calculations figured out for the marks that you wish to achieve
while also accounting for a few Qs that might go wrong. The way this works is
that the higher the number of Qs you try to attempt, the more are the chances
of also getting wrong ones. It’s a risk but it is one you must be willing
to be brave enough to take.
Eg: To score 220 you need to solve about 55 Qs. If you get about 50 correct (+4) and 5 wrong (-1) then you still manage to score 195 marks (Qualification score for 2020 was 163 marks)
To get a great rank you must aim to solve a minimum of 90 Qs (Don’t try to be an overconfident person and try to solve all 125 Qs either). If you get 85 correct and 10 wrong, then you will still manage to score 290 marks (Makes you AIR 10 - 2020, AIR 5 - 2019, AIR 10 - 2018).
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| Lockscreen wallpaper for the last 5 weeks of preparation |
You also need to have your timing figured out at this stage. The paper is of 3 hours and 125 Qs. Until the very end I was in a state of mind that said, “Huh this is a Pharmacy exam with mostly theory based Qs a few easy calculations related sums that shouldn’t take me more than 2 hours to solve, recheck and go through the whole paper. This isn’t heavy like a JEE paper so I’m going to be okay.” Do not live in this fantasy. Plan your time properly and decide these things before hand:
- How much time you’re going to give to each question?
- When do you want to finish going over the whole paper in the first go?
- How much time will you give to reevaluate and check your answers?
- How much time to go over the paper one last time?
I had planned
for all of these things. My aim was to get a good rank so the number of
questions I had decided to attempt was 90+ Qs. I had all my calculations
figured out and based on the merit list of GPAT 2019 I had assumed out that a
score of 250+ would meant that I would be in the top 25 ranks (This is kind of
where I messed up and underestimated how the batch of 2020 would perform). I
had decided that I would spend 1½ hours going over all the questions and attempting
as many as I could in the first go, giving ½ minute to the easy ones and 1
minute to the tough ones. The next 1 hour to reevaluate my answers and attempt
some more. The last ½ hour to check the full paper one last time.
Approaching D-Day
No amount of
time spent preparing will make you ready for the thrill and fear you will face
on the actual day of the exam. It is okay to feel this way and you are going to
get through it.
Our exam was
scheduled for 2:30 to 5:30 pm but we were supposed to report to the exam center
by 12:30 pm so I made sure that I reached there by about 11:30 am. Reaching the
exam center early does not really inspire any confidence in you because you
will see a lot of kids around doing timepass, sitting down in one
nice cozy place on the road to eat food, a few chit chatting – pretty much the
usual scenario you would experience in any other exam. I chose to ignore that
and sat in one nice spot with my friends to revise a few things I wanted to
until I had time.
By 12:00 pm the
CMAT exam got over which was scheduled in the first half of the day and then we
were asked to enter inside. My center did have a storage facility where we
could safely place our bags, belongings and phone inside for a meagre fee. You’re
expected to carry NOTHING at all except for a color print of your admit card, a
photograph and a government ID card. Watches, jewellery and bottles are not allowed either.
Once you’re
done with that you’re supposed to find what “block” you’re in which is pasted
on a list outside the center itself. This is the block where you will find the
seat for your roll no.
Next you head
there and there’s a line of students waiting to be checked before they’re
allowed inside. The first step is to make sure that you’re only carry the three
things asked from you (Even if you're carrying a pen you're asked to go back and keep it in your bag). The next step verifies your identity and then allow you
in.
My center was a
dedicated testing facility where all sorts of national exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, CMAT, etc. occur so inside
i was greeted with rows and rows of computers all lined up. I was inside my “block”
but then they were also subdivided into smaller “sub-blocks” which is shown on
a big chart displayed right after you enter.
Next you find
your “sub-block” but the journey doesn’t end here either. Once you reach this
place which is essentially a row of 10 computers lined opposite to each other,
you find another line of students lining up to reach a supervisor. You reach up
to your supervisor and they enter your roll no in their system, click your
photo and give you a number for the exact computer where you will be placed.
I reached my
computer but I didn’t have track of any time so far because I didn’t have my
watch on me. There was a wall clock which showed that I still had about 45
minutes before 2:30 pm. The computer doesn’t show anything except for the
details about your name, photo and roll no. The system did not change until
2:25 pm and you can spend this time however you see fit.
We were all
given rough sheets to scribble on along with a pen by the attendants there and
these are submitted at the end of the exam. The first thing I did there was
write down my aim to solve how many Qs in how much time. I also converted the
time into minutes – 1 hour (60 mins), 2 hours (120 mins) and 3 hours (180 mins)
because that is how the timer on my computer showed elapsed time and I didn’t
want to waste time during the exam in converting the hours into minutes.
At 2:25 pm
there was an announcement over the PA system that told us the instructions to
be followed. A minute later the screen updated and flashed the instructions
regarding the exam – what to click and operating the UI, color codes of the buttons and what they
meant, how to go to the next/previous Q, etc.
There was a
facility inside my block which had the washroom and a water dispenser. We could go visit that whenever we wanted to.
D-Day
The paper began
at precisely 2:30 pm and my heart began racing!
The thrill,
anxiety, fear and initial rush of emotions you feel take a few moments until
you finally settle yourself in and prepare to attempt the paper for the next 3 hours.
The paper itself is divided in sections – Pharmaceutics, Organic chemistry, Pharmacognosy, Pharmacology and Miscellaneous (I don’t remember properly now). The number of questions in that section is displayed on the right side and has color codes that have different meanings (You will figure them out on your own a few minutes before you attempt the exam). You can choose to go in any section and attempt any question in the sequence you wish to do.
I followed the sequence
that was displayed by default and didn’t jump between sections. The way I solved
Qs was that I clicked on the question and then tried to cover the options with
my hand so that the answers weren’t visible to me. I read the question properly
and tried to figure out the answer based on my own knowledge and wrote them on
the rough sheet that I was given. Only after this I saw the options that they
provided. This made sure that I didn’t get overwhelmed and confused between the
options since I had already decided what my own answer was going to be. I tallied my answer with the options that were displayed on the screen.
I went through the
whole paper once in about 1½ hours and during this time I solved as many questions
that I was absolutely sure of 100% that I would get right (These Qs and their
numbers were shown in green). I had skipped
the questions that I knew I had no clue about (These were shown in red). The total number of questions that I was sure
about were 56 Qs and I had calculated that these came out to give me a score of
224 marks. This was obviously insufficient for me and my goal was to score
more.
I spent the
next 1 hour rechecking all my previous answers and going over the questions
that I couldn’t attempt in the first go and had marked for review (These were
shown in purple). These were Qs that were
tough, took me more than a minute to think about or were questions where I was
confused between 2 options for the answers. I called these the “80% guarantee”
questions. These were the questions that I wasn’t sure about, but answering them
was a calculated risk that I felt was worth taking. I spent over 2-3 min on
each of these, carefully evaluated each answer, pushed my brain as much as I could
to figure out the answer that I was 80% sure about. There were 26 Qs like
this that I solved during this time. These 26 Qs amounted to 104 marks. This
would have brought my total to 330 marks. I also accounted for any answers that
would go wrong here.
During the last
½ hour I spent my time going over the whole paper again from start to end. This
time I decided to focus on some answers that I skipped in the past one hour.
These were the “50% guarantee” questions – These were questions that were
highly risky and the probability of them going wrong was high. Nevertheless,
this was also a risk I was willing to take and I carefully chose a few
questions and attempted them too. These were 6 Qs that amounted to 32 marks.
In total I had attempted 89/125 and left about 36 questions. There is a very fine line between carefully evaluating your answers and taking a calculated risk vs. being over smart, attempting as many Qs as you can and letting luck decide your fate. The 36 Qs were questions that I had absolutely no clue about. You will come across such Qs too and be smart enough to completely skip them.
I had attempted 89 Qs in total which meant 356 marks.
After D-Day
I was lost on
the next day after attempting the exam. I had put in a year's worth of efforts
and it all came down to this one day. The battle was over and what remained now was patiently waiting for the results. Lost because every day for the past 5
weeks were spent in revision and now I had reached 29th January
where I didn’t need to revise anymore because the battle was over.
In a few days
after GPAT exam, NTA releases the answer sheets. It is a PDF of all
your questions and the answers you chose as you could see them on your screen
on the day of the exam. NTA also releases the answer keys along with these so
you can technically calculate your score to some extent by yourself.
I said ‘some
extent’ because initially when NTA released the answer key they had given wrong
answers for 5 Qs. If you had attempted these questions, then regardless of what
you answer you chose it gets marked as a correct answer and you get the full
+4 marks for it. I had attempted 4 of these and these were the “Bonus Qs”.
This was a
tough time for me because I saw the answers that I had chosen for each of the
Qs and I realized all the mistakes I made and where I messed up.
You can study as hard as you can give your best shot but there are always some variables that aren’t in your control. These are the ones that you can never prepare for and the ones that hit you very hard! Some of these are:
- How much rest you had the previous night and how high your energy levels are during the exam?
- Maintaining your pace and determination through the whole duration of the exam.
- Not getting demotivated because of the few answers that you cannot attempt.
- Not panicking and getting anxious because you’re getting confused between a few options.
- Managing your time through the whole duration of the exam.
When I saw the
answer sheet that NTA released, I realized that I had made silly mistakes in
relatively easy answers, a few questions where I knew the right answer even if
you wake me up in the middle of the night but somehow I answered it wrong in
the paper, some questions that I skipped during the course of the exam but I figured
them out when I saw the actual answers, some answers that clicked in my head when I saw
the paper one more time a few days later at the comfort of my own house and
many more.
I calculated my
score using the answer keys of NTA and my score was in the range of 236 to 261
marks. It’s a range because there are some bonus Qs that NTA never accepts and
you’re marked wrong for that (This is the example of Mefloquin that I mentioned
in one of my previous posts where I explained why Wilson is more important than
Foye when it comes to GPAT).
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| The question concerning Mefloquine |
Result
You do know
your rough score well before the official result is announced. This doesn’t
matter much because what ultimately matters is if your score is good enough to
qualify and how good is your rank. Rank is a relative criterion that depends on
your performance vs. the performance of your batch mates.
The official
date they had given for GPAT result was 4th February, a week after
the GPAT exam. It was on schedule and NTA released the merit list at about 8
pm. This was the most exciting moment for me which made me truly happy when I learned
that I scored 256 marks and achieved an All India Rank of 52!
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| GPAT 2020 merit list |
I was a little
upset too (you’re not allowed to judge me for this) because I had expected a
better score and a higher rank. I knew I could have easily scored 300+ and
achieved a rank that was in the top 10 but life doesn’t always work out how you wish. I am truly happy with my performance and my rank in all
aspects!
My rank was the
highest among my batch mates at SKNCOP. I set a new benchmark since this was
the first time someone achieved a double digit rank at SKNCOP (The previous one
was set by my senior 2 years ago with a rank of 187).
I had almost
touched AIR 50 and I could say that I was among the top 50 of my batch mates across
all of India among 50,000 other students who gave the GPAT 2020 exam.
The feeling of excitement
and the rush of emotions that I felt when I realized my rank is exhilarating. I
don’t know what your motives are to giving this exam but you should definitely
work super hard to experience this feeling at least once in your life!
Dear which College did you joined ?
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