You will be provided with a booklet of laminated paper that you write on with a skinny marker. If I recall, you get five sheets of laminated paper. If you run out, you can raise your hand and ask for more. It's hard to get used to the marker and paper, so it's a good idea to practice on it before the actual test.

Other than that, you can use earplugs if you want, but I think having stuff stuck in my ears for 3.5 hours is more annoying than a little background noise!

Both my test centers (one on the east coast, one on the west) offered noise canceling headphones (not earplugs). The centers were pretty quiet anyway, but they kept my ears warm!

try visiting the test centre before hand to get a feel for the environment. my friend who took the exam in our city told me the computer room was Really really hot (no AC!!!). he almost fell asleep during the second half of verbal section, reading all those paragraphs