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Up until January 1, 2006, Educational Testing Service (ETS) created the GMAT. In their place, ACT has begun publishing the exam. The test has not changed, however; the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) has, since the dawn of time, directed the GMAT's content.

In all of their stodgy wisdom, GMAC has divided the test into the following three segments (according to the order in which they appear to a test taker):

• The Essays - two 30-minute essays in which the tester analyzes an issue and an argument, respectively. This section does not count toward our score but schools see it and doing well is imperative if you expect admission to the most selective MBA programs.
• The Math - 37 multiple choice math questions in 75 minutes. These questions cover arithmetic, algibra, and geometry via 'straight math' questions (x+2 = 4, solve for x) and word problems (two trains are traveling toward each other at 5 miles per hour ...) This section also presents about 13 questions in a nasty, ruthless format known as data sufficiency.
• The Verbal - 41 multiple choice verbal questions in 75 minutes. Verbal questions come in three specific varieties: Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension, and Critical Reasoning.

On the surface, the test looks fairly benign. Solve for x, πr^2 some circles, find a few subject-verb agreements, bang out a couple essays, and you're done, right?

Wrong.

Over the years ETS (now ACT) and the GMAC have honed the GMAT into a sneaky, dastardly den of brambles that will, without remorse, ensnare, crush, and destroy anyone who dares underestimate its trickery. Because the test is computer adaptive (meaning it gets harder or easier depending on whether you answer questions correctly) it literally raises to your skill level and buries you under an ever strengthening set of quandries.

From what I gather, the SAT's got nothing on this sucker.

Thus far, I have studied between two and three hours a day for three weeks and two days. I have reviewed Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT, 2006 and am working on Kaplan's GMAT 800. Once I'm finished with both books, I'll take Princeton Review's practice exams, assess my readiness, address my weak spots, and continue to bolster my strengths. Once I've reached a solid level of performance on the practice tests, I'll take one of two available practice tests published by ETS/ACT. These are the real deal and ought to give me a very good idea of how well I'll do on Test Day.

Ultimately, I plan to study for at least two months. Why so much? Because I want to score 700. How good is 700? Well, students at Harvard (ranked #1), MIT (#4), and Duke (#11) scored an average of 707, 700, and 701, respectively. In other words, I want a score that will make me a competitive candidate for the best programs in the world. Put another way, scoring 700 would put me in the 92nd percentile, meaning that I would've scored better than 92 out of a 100 test takers. Only 8 out of 100 people score better than 700 on the GMAT.

Needless to say, I've created a lofty goal for myself. But with nearly a month of studying behind me, I'm still confident that I can beat this test.

"Because it's there ..."

"I have no inspiration," I said. "It's simply gone. What was once a deep well of hope and possibility is now is a dry and dusty hole in my heart. I look ahead and don't see exciting changes. I just see the same hum-drum march into perpetuity."

"Why? You have great things ahead!" Sam exclaimed.

"If I had something that lit me up ... Something, anything, then I could take my mind off of my problems, focus, and find some inspiration ... Instead, I just don't care. I do what I need to do to get through my day and then I come home and, if I'm feeling really really really motivated, I go for a run. And maybe blog."

And then, tired of hearing the same sad complaints for weeks on end, "look," she said, with edgy resolve, "I hate to be a jerk but its not that easy, on any front. Even when I was miserable because of my job situation I wasn't all the time, actively being motivated by my academic interests. They didn't carry me through every day. And when you start studying again after a long while of not having done so, it sucks. No matter who you are and how much you thought you liked school. It is not easy. At some point I just had to make a decision to give myself more options, even if it meant making really tough decisions that didn't feel right at the time, or sacrificing a life that was mostly great."

"You can do this. Pull yourself up. Find a way ..."

And so I have decided to study for, take, and conquer the Graduate Management Admission Test or, as past, present, and future business school students know it, the GMAT.

I do need more options and, honestly, I need to crawl out of this mire ... this bog of hopelessness and despair that I've allowed to slowly pool around my ankles.

Truthfully, I'm not ever sure I want an MBA. So why spend countless hours and hundreds of dollars taking a test that I'm not even sure I'll need?

Well, for one, I'm not sure I WON'T need it either. But, beyond that, I felt, when I first opened my study guides a few weeks ago, like this trek might rekindle a fight in me that's long stood dormant. The great mountaineer George Leigh Mallory once said that he wanted to climb Mount Everest, "because it's there." I too want to climb this Everest for the same reason. I accepted this challenge knowing full well that I stand in jeopardy of losing time, money, and (quite honestly) pride. No matter- now, just a few weeks into my quest, I can already feel desire and drive stir within me. This challenge has brought about good, well overdue change. As overdramatic as it may sound, I feel a little more alive and a little more couragous.

Of course, simply climbing to the top of this GMAT mountain isn't enough. Mallory himself is believed to have died just after he reached the summet of Everest. Years later his son, John Mallory, coolly noted that, "the only way you achieve a summit is to come back alive. The job is half done if you don't get down again."

That, then, will be the function of this sub-blog. I'm going to use it to find my way up the mountain (by keeping myself honest, by reporting my progress, and by sharing what I learn) and to find my way back down (by remembering what I'm really out to climb.)

Wish me luck, friends. My journey of a thousand miles is only in its first steps and already I feel the odd combination of weighty expectation and feather-light hope. Now, to find my inspiration ...