Down the CAE Rabbit Hole

Alice: But I don’t want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
Alice: How do you know I’m mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn’t have come here.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

By Lewis Carroll

One could argue that I am mad.

I have a full-time job. I have a two-year-old whirlwind who wears bows and dances to Lady Gaga. I have a freelancing job that I work at on the weekends. I have a husband who actually wants to spend time with me.  Why would I need the CAE?  How will I find time to study?  Why now?

After trying (and failing) for the CAE before, has this first 37 Days since deciding to try again made me Fabulous?

No.

Not yet.

But I’m getting closer.

Last night I met with one of my study partners, Sima, at a Starbucks in Springfield, Virginia, and we spent two hours taking a practice exam and talking through each one of the questions. We only made it through 52 questions before calling it a night, but I learned, once again, how valuable and necessary a study group is. Even after taking the Immersion Course, passing the test is more than attending a class and a memorization of facts. It is knowing things like UBIT, anti-trust, governance, and higher-level reasoning frontwards and backwards.  It is practicing endurance during test-taking, and learning how to force through question fatigue and dissect every question into manageable parts. In short, printing out a list of helpful mnemonics and definitions to study will only help you pass the exam if you have already done much reading and reasoning to prepare.

Last night was the first time I met Sima in person and she is incredibly smart and well-organized. We decided we would continue to meet weekly to go over possible test questions for each domain and I offered I would try to get a few of the Immersion instructors to visit our group before the test.

Regarding studying with another person (or people):

It was hard for me to allow myself to show what I didn’t know to a virtual stranger.  I have always been a more independent kind of student who tried to learn as much as I could “behind-the-scenes” so I wouldn’t have to show my areas of weakness to anyone.  Better yet, I want to always have a sprezzatura way of getting things done.  But sitting with Sima, we broke right through that almost immediately by launching into the test at her suggestion. She is a no-nonsense kind of person who is also very quick to laugh and smile.  Perfect for a study partner!  My message from this is: Get over yourself and be humble in your quest for knowledge. Your pride might hurt from exposing weaknesses, but it will hurt much worse to not pass the exam. Plus, you will never force yourself to do your studies the right way. This process is good for you as a human being.

Tonight I meet with my study group from the Immersion Course. Our first meeting is to go over our study plan – which domains we will cover each week (they’ve been assigned, but we haven’t established the order yet) – and I am excited to see how that will work.

I will also be using today to solidify my virtual study group plans, so more news will come out about that later.  I am hoping to have something available online for busy people like me who need a virtual spot to study (and I need all the studying I can get).

So, madness? Yes, maybe I am a little mad to be so crazily enmeshed in this CAE process. But it’s a good kind of madness.

We’re all mad here.

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