Pearson Vue fails to deliver my VCAP-DCA

iBrokeIT

I was scheduled to take this exam at the Pearson Professional Center in Bloomington MN at their Corporate Headquarters at 8:00am.

Started the exam which felt terribly slow, like 10 seconds to refresh the RDC screen after closing the "Edit Settings" on a VM. Then 10 minutes in, I experienced a complete RDC time out from the lab environment. It came back after a minute, worked for 3 minutes then disconnected again.

I notified the Pearson Vue staff and they contacted the Pearson Vue VMware program coordinator as well as VMware. They advised the local staff to reset the exam and start it on another computer with a little extra time, same result - time out/disconnects again after another 7 mins.

At this point I was beyond frustrated and in no mental state to successfully complete this exam. The local staff were of no help, gave me a number to call and shoo'ed me out the door. I called the number and they said an investigation would take 3-5 business days. They would offer to reschedule the exam if their investigation agreed with the local staff's assessment that there was technical difficulties but they would not compensate me for taking off of work.

The wonderful thing is that I have until Aug 31st to recertify which I am doubtful they will have a date before then given the availability when I tried to schedule the first time.

This experience as completely soured my opinion of Pearson's ability to deliver VMware VCAP exams.

If you are thinking about taking this exam - DON'T DO IT.

scaredoftests

I am not a huge fan of Pearson. Had a awful experience just to get registered for a test. Shouldn't have to go through that type of stress.

iBrokeIT

The sad result of a lack of choice and a lazy monopoly that is accountable to nobody.

If I had the option to take it at home with a webcam and pay $100 extra or Pearson Vue, I would take pay that extra $100 in a datastore heartbeat.

Deathmage

I know what you mean man. The last testing center I went to was nice and there PC's were speedy and chairs comfy. There is one in Carmel, NY that literally has 10 year old PC's and the tests took forever to load....

Maybe find a different testing center?

iBrokeIT

This was at a Pearson Professional Center which is a lot different that just a regular Pearson Vue testing centers where you take Microsoft and Cisco exams. It was also in the same building as the Pearson Vue Corporate Headquarters no less.

Yes, it looks like I will be driving to St Paul or Eagan for the retake rather than gamble with them again.

Essendon

From what I've heard and gathered, this problem isn't to do with Pearson. It's the location of and the way the lab's setup. I believe the lab pod's in the US somewhere, possibly Palo Alto so the latency shouldn't have been too bad for you, but it was. When I did my DTA at a Pearson Professional Center, the latency was very bad, took 10 seconds between switching windows (while the test clock, based on the local computer, kept ticking). At a non-Pearson Professional Center for my DCA, the latency was still there, but not too bad. Do you want to try a non-Pearson center too? Just a thought.

Well good thing is you've got a case logged, they are sure to give you a 100% discount voucher for a retake and you've not given up on taking the test. Don't let these minor niggles distract you from your goals.