How to Smoke the GRE

31 Simple Steps to Outstanding GRE Results:
1) Forget to eat during at least the 24 hours before the test.
2) Avoid serious studying. Procrastinate, under the theory that, “The first try is just for practice anyway.”
3) Make up an imaginary, incorrect top score of 1200 for the non-writing test sections and believe it’s real.
4) Accidentally schedule your test for an excruciatingly cold day with winds that blow small cars off highways.
5) Own a small car.
6) Learn the address of the test center, but avoid knowledge of where geographically that might be.
7) Leave on the serious road trip with what you assume is just about enough time to get to the test center.
8) Put blind faith in the directional guidance of a GPS navigator.
9) Put blind faith in your home state to not significantly renumber addresses after you purchase a GPS.
10) After arriving to a pristine winter pastoral, shut off the GPS and attempt to deduce logically where the test center might be.
11) Finally identify a large clump of identical unmarked buildings resembling crosses between an unlabeled office building, a vacant warehouse, and an “Applebee’s.”
12) Blindly park by and enter the only such building with cars near it.
13) Have a small, private celebration over the fact that the random guess about the building was miraculously correct.
14) Take the GRE.
15) View the score report. Become depressed that the scores reported are less than 1200.
16) Copy reported scores down onto the top page of the scrap paper in huge, labeled numbers.
17) Make chitchat with the guy who collects scrap paper and babysits ID’s about retaking the test as you are handed a sheet of paper entitled “Interpreting Your GRE Scores.”
18) Copy your scores over the pre-printed text of said “Interpreting Your GRE Scores” sheet of paper.
19) Do not read “Interpreting Your GRE Scores.” Continue writing your score in large numbers over the printed text instead. Allow scrap paper guy to read huge score from either sheet.
20) Become shocked and mildly offended when the bemused scrap paper guy answers by asking how exactly you plan to do much better next time.
21) Collect your ID and leave, leaving only the wake of your sudden, stony silence.
22) Impulsively have a change of heart and decide to read “Interpreting Your GRE Scores” while packing up to go home.
23) Become confused. Ask receptionist why sheet of paper does not cover scores in the 801 to 1200 range.
24) Realize you have spent 10 minutes being a total tool.
25) Allow audible, delighted laughter to overtake mortified embarrassment.
26) Seriously consider carrying your car home to burn off a sudden rush of energy.
27) Step out side and remember why you came dressed as a chilly “Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man.”
28) Choose to drive car instead.
29) Drive to nearby vegetarian restaurant and order several full meals, greatly amusing the bored waitstaff with unprecedented vegan gluttony.
30) Go home.
31) Annoy GRE-nervous friends with outlandish “practice” test story.