THE UPCAT EXAM

UNEDITED SAMPLE LITERARY ARTICLE
By Francesca Gabrielle Rodriguez Trinidad
IV - Albert Einstein

I woke up at around 5:00am. I was a bit nervous and tense, and the cold weather didn’t make me less anxious. I asked God for his supernatural knowledge to help me through the test. I prayed that he would help me recall everything I had reviewed the previous days. I took a bath with hot water, and to my surprise, my anxiety turned into excitement. I dressed up and prepared the things I needed, woke up my dad and left the house at around 5:45am.

The trip to UP Diliman was relatively short. It wasn’t as long as I thought it would be. Soon we were in the Katipunan Area already. I looked around and saw prestigious universities such as Ateneo, which is my dream school. We drove down a narrow street leading down to the Institute of Physics (Pavilion 3). My dad asked me if I had money or not. He gave me 200 pesos, since I had not eaten that morning. I ran across the street and hurried for the place where I assumed was the entrance, presented my exam permit and moved straight down the corridor as I followed the instructions of the marshals who were designated to lead us to the exam room.

Room 3201 was filled with teenagers. I sat down next to a guy in red and waited for the instructions of the UPCAT Examiner. It wasn’t as cold as I expected it to be. A few minutes after my arrival, the orientation for the exam was started. We were told to use Mongol No. 2 pencils, which, unfortunately, I did not have. I brought a lot of pencils, though, but none of them was a Mongol No. 2 pencil. And so I raised my hand as the Examiner asked who did not have a Mongol pencil. The instructions were heard clearly since the proctor used a mic.

When she finally asked us to open our test booklets, I was shocked with the types of questions I saw. They were not the difficult ones I was expecting. They were not-so-hard but yet not-so-easy questions. I found myself intimidated by my two seatmates, though. The one on my right side finished the Science subtest 20 minutes before the allotted time, while the one on my left side finished the Math subtest 30 minutes before the allotted time so I was a bit pressured myself. But now, I think of this as being foolish and I laughed at it after taking the test.

The whole test was not as difficult as other people mentioned it to be. It was average, not easy but not hard as well. It was just right. By the end of the test, I was really hungry because I had not eaten breakfast yet. And the test made me even more hungry, it was literally what they call a brain drain type of test but it wasn’t because of the level of difficulty but because of the length of time we were to stay in the room.

I saw Lavinia Lopez as I walked outside. She asked about the test and told her that it was not that difficult. She was going to take the test at 12:30pm. I wished her the best of luck and we headed our separate ways. It took about 30 minutes before my family got to the building. I told them I was really hungry and I ate McDo as my brunch and I thought – What a treat! It may seem shallow but there is nothing like a good meal after 5 hours of sitting in place while taking a long exam.