once upon a brainy time

[thoumayest]

Have you ever seen a human brain before? Personally?

I have.
Yup.
It happened on August 5, Saturday, the morning of my UPCAT Exam. We were passing by the road while praying that the test hadn't begun. Suddenly, the two-lane road had to become one. There'd been an automobile accident. Two motorcycles, I think. Rubbish were scattered all over the lane. Plastics, remnants of the helmet and the motorcycle and some possessions of the two idiots. Among the rubbish was this reddish piece of meat that I thought was part of the drivers' baggage. Then Mom said, "Lumabas na yung utak niya, oh." I took a second look at the red thing, and there it was. A human brain, one and a half meters away from me with nothing to separate us but a cold, steel, car door.

If you still want to go to detailed writing, you might want to continue on. If not, I suggest you skip this paragraph before your lunch splatters all over your computer. It looked like, how should I explain this... like ground beef. Only that it had bigger chunks and looked fresh from the fridge since it was still intact. Well, part of it was. Blood wasn't all over. I didn't even notice a single drop. It's as if the piece of meat was dissected and placed in the middle of the road. Left to be stared at in wonder by on-lookers. Thank God the UPCAT didn't have any items concerning the brain, or else my answer sheet might be stained with hotdogs and Milo.

Well, enough about the brain, let's go to the UPCAT. Well, it was like anything expected from an entrance test. Definitively harder than the CSAT, but I think Manresans will survive. The Test was subdivided to four parts, Language Proficiency, Science, Math and Reading Comprehension. One has to finish a subtest under an allotted time. If you finished before the time, you have to stop at that subtest and cannot move on to the next subject. You see that is what the test aims to measure, "Speed without sacrificing Accuracy." (I heard this from the examiner over three times) It somehow feels like you wasted time while you were waiting for the time to pass when you finished early before the time. you see, that precious time could have been devoted to ultra-super-mega-wonder-hard Math (with wings!) but you just had to control yourself not to turn to the next page.

What's really fun is that you declare your own recess. You can eat while answering so I suggest that you bring something that you'll just pop into yur mouth and leave everything to your salivary amylase to break down. I also suggest that you eat when you're already on the Reading Comprehension part. It requires less concentration, you see. You're an idiot if you start eating at Math. By the way, the examiner said that 1/4 of your wrong will be deducted from your right answers. Not 1/2, 1/3 or 1/5, it's 1/4, people.

Good luck to everyone, then. It's fun!!!

P.S. Advanced Happy Birthday to our dear, dear keeper of the water jewel, EJ!!!!

Comments

[earthen-sorrow.livejournal.com]

Darn math! uber hard! I only answered 25 out of 60! I tried the other questions but I just couldn't solve them! I didn't make wild guesses, I was playing safe. those 25 questions I answered were from 70-100% correct to me.

I'd luv to get the human brain and place it in a glass jar, i'd love to examine it. Verrrry fine specimen indeed! (emphasis on the 'r')