This is one of those tests that can make or break a career. Pass, and you are admitted to the inner circle, where you are carefully instructed on how to make lots of money by selling things that don't, technically, exist. Futures, for example. People run around buying and selling them all the time, but no one has ever actually seen a future in the wild. You almost never see a cable wildlife show where the hunters are "in search of the wily Pork Belly Future."

Fail the GMAT, and your only option is a career in small engine repair.

Most of the time, I have faired moderately well when taking examinations, and have never before been overly worried about any particular test. For example, I hardly flinched at all when I had to take my Wasserman test so I could get married. I'm pretty sure I passed. At least the county Health Department has never said otherwise.

My eye exam, though more challenging, was faced and completed with only an occasional minor outburst of crying and whining. Apparently I had been assigned a very emotional optometrist. I will never know why it was so important to the optometrist that I read line seven on the chart, when I felt quite comfortable with the words in line six. After all, EROPN and GLXYT are very nice words which I have used in conversations, although, I must admit, the frequency of use is slightly higher after consuming three or four beers.

I wasn't at all pleased with the new words on line seven, MYUPB and WIVZE, which I felt were stuffy and pretentious. Words better left for dull, lengthy Supreme Court decisions, or perhaps a Norman Mailer novel.

Thus I know that I can deal emotionally with many of the major tests one must take in life. It just seems, that for some reason, I can't make myself face this particular test.

The Graduate Management Aptitude Test is divided into two sections: Math Problems for Super-Intelligent Math Majors, and Silly English Questions. I feel quite comfortable when answering the English questions, since answering silly questions is my only true talent.

For example, in a trial run test of the GMAT that I recently completed, one of the English questions was:

PLEASE CORRECT THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE.

Jim Bob got angry and whomped up on Billy Lee for a spell.

A. An angry Jim Bob whomped up on Billy Lee for an indeterminate length of      time.
B. For awhile, Jim Bob, who was angry, whomped up on Billy Lee.
C. Jim Bob couldn't whomp Billy Lee even if he brought along all of his     cousins and two of his uncles.

Of course, this is one of the GMAT's many trick questions, because the answer depends on whether or not you have seen Jim Bob and Billy Lee fight recently. Before taking the GMAT, I would suggest that you visit the Rebel Yell Corner Bar and Grill on a Saturday night at about 2 AM. Sit in the very back booth, near the kitchen, and don't dare say anything about Billy Lee's mother, no matter how great the temptation. And, trust me here, you will be tempted once you take a gander at Billy Lee's mom. At some point in the early morning hours, Billy Lee and Jim Bob will get into a fight, thereby giving you the correct answer to this test question.

Unfortunately, the Math section of the test seemed to contain a large number of geometry questions, a subject I have heard rumors about, but have never actually seen, much less studied. Hence my concern that the GMAT, a computer adaptive test, will immediately spot my ignorance of geometry, and in that good natured, devil may care attitude that computer adaptive tests have, assign me one geometry question after another for several hours, all the while chuckling to itself.

"Hell's Bells," the computer will muse, "this boy doesn't know the difference between acute and obtuse triangles. In fact, he couldn't tell a triangle from a rhomboid if his life depended on it. Let's give him two hundred straight questions about triangles. That'll teach him a lesson he won't soon forget."

At least that's what I would do if I was a computer adaptive test.