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My horrible testing experience
W Stewart
Member Posts: 794 ■■■■□□□□□□
Just saw a thread about certiport and it made me remember my one horrible experience with them so I thought I'd post it. It was for the Windows OS Fundamentals MTA exam and I guess it's more about the particular testing site I went to then certiport itself but the experience overall was pretty bad.
For starters I couldn't register on-line like you can with prometric and pearson. I had to call a number which wouldn't have been that big of a deal except it was right after the holidays and I couldn't get anybody on the phone until a good two weeks into January. When I got there, the proctor at the test site didn't take any of my personal belongings which isn't that big of a deal to me but it's what I'm use to at reputable testing centers.
The real problem came when multiple questions froze on me in the middle of the exam and I couldn't answer them at all. When I let the proctor know she told me to just mark them for review and come get her after I answered all of the other questions and that she would then have somebody named Daniel look at it to find out what was wrong. After I answered all of the other questions, I went to get her as she instructed. She went looking for this Daniel person only to find that he wasn't there. Afte she went through the answers on the test to verify that they still froze on me, she basically tried to tell me that there was nothing she could do about it because she didn't know anything about computers.
Now me having had technical difficulties at a testing site before, asked her if there was a technical support number for certiport that she could call. Of course there was a number much like I expected but for some reason she didn't think to call the technical support number when I was having technical difficulties even though this is something that any test proctor usually does when something isn't working right with the testing software. Not that it's that big of a deal but she also had me calling the support number instead of doing it herself but I guess she had to be available to answer the main phone line. She also tried to have me end the exam before calling the support number but I convince her to let me call the support number first because I didn't want to fail my exam and I may have also needed real time proof that my exam was freezing on me in order for them to comp me on it.
The silver lining in all of this was that while I was waiting on hold to get someone on the phone, I realized that if I left my test sitting on the page that froze on me, my time wouldn't run down. I also wrote down the answers that froze on me even though I had them marked for review just in-case. When I got somebody on the phone, the first thing they told me to do was to power the computer off and back on again. I was thinking wtf in my mind as I asked him how that would affect my test. I know it's standard troubleshooting procedure when you're working help desk but this is a special situation here. The guy on the phone proceeded to tell me that the test would actually save my spot and continue where I left off when I launched the certiport sofware again. He had me go into the control panel once the computer started and verified that I was using an older version of their sofware. They had actually updated all of their software a few days prior and somehow I ended up taking my test on the one computer that wasn't updated.
I was able to launch my test on another computer and continue where I left off but as I attempted to finish the test, I realized that if you re-visit a question that you marked for review, the test un-marks that question. Since the proctor went back to look at all of the answers that weren't working again, she un-marked them. Luckily I had them written down, or so I thought. When I looked down at the plastic covered notepad I was given, it was blank. I checked my old desk and didn't find anything on it. I went to ask the proctor what happened to my notepad that I was writing on and it turns out that she took the liberty of erasing everything that I had written down on it. What the heck? I wasn't even finished with the exam. I remebered all of the question numbers except for one and luckily she ended up remember the other one but that was just the most ridiculous testing experience I'd ever had. I still ended up passing and after looking at my score I probably would have still passed if I'd have just ended the exam when she told me to and went home.
Anybody else ever have a similar or worse testing experience?
For starters I couldn't register on-line like you can with prometric and pearson. I had to call a number which wouldn't have been that big of a deal except it was right after the holidays and I couldn't get anybody on the phone until a good two weeks into January. When I got there, the proctor at the test site didn't take any of my personal belongings which isn't that big of a deal to me but it's what I'm use to at reputable testing centers.
The real problem came when multiple questions froze on me in the middle of the exam and I couldn't answer them at all. When I let the proctor know she told me to just mark them for review and come get her after I answered all of the other questions and that she would then have somebody named Daniel look at it to find out what was wrong. After I answered all of the other questions, I went to get her as she instructed. She went looking for this Daniel person only to find that he wasn't there. Afte she went through the answers on the test to verify that they still froze on me, she basically tried to tell me that there was nothing she could do about it because she didn't know anything about computers.
Now me having had technical difficulties at a testing site before, asked her if there was a technical support number for certiport that she could call. Of course there was a number much like I expected but for some reason she didn't think to call the technical support number when I was having technical difficulties even though this is something that any test proctor usually does when something isn't working right with the testing software. Not that it's that big of a deal but she also had me calling the support number instead of doing it herself but I guess she had to be available to answer the main phone line. She also tried to have me end the exam before calling the support number but I convince her to let me call the support number first because I didn't want to fail my exam and I may have also needed real time proof that my exam was freezing on me in order for them to comp me on it.
The silver lining in all of this was that while I was waiting on hold to get someone on the phone, I realized that if I left my test sitting on the page that froze on me, my time wouldn't run down. I also wrote down the answers that froze on me even though I had them marked for review just in-case. When I got somebody on the phone, the first thing they told me to do was to power the computer off and back on again. I was thinking wtf in my mind as I asked him how that would affect my test. I know it's standard troubleshooting procedure when you're working help desk but this is a special situation here. The guy on the phone proceeded to tell me that the test would actually save my spot and continue where I left off when I launched the certiport sofware again. He had me go into the control panel once the computer started and verified that I was using an older version of their sofware. They had actually updated all of their software a few days prior and somehow I ended up taking my test on the one computer that wasn't updated.
I was able to launch my test on another computer and continue where I left off but as I attempted to finish the test, I realized that if you re-visit a question that you marked for review, the test un-marks that question. Since the proctor went back to look at all of the answers that weren't working again, she un-marked them. Luckily I had them written down, or so I thought. When I looked down at the plastic covered notepad I was given, it was blank. I checked my old desk and didn't find anything on it. I went to ask the proctor what happened to my notepad that I was writing on and it turns out that she took the liberty of erasing everything that I had written down on it. What the heck? I wasn't even finished with the exam. I remebered all of the question numbers except for one and luckily she ended up remember the other one but that was just the most ridiculous testing experience I'd ever had. I still ended up passing and after looking at my score I probably would have still passed if I'd have just ended the exam when she told me to and went home.
Anybody else ever have a similar or worse testing experience?
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Judderman88
Member Posts: 56 ■■■□□□□□□□
I took 70-290 at a very good test centre, it hung several times forcing me to leave the exam for an hour. Spoke to Prometric and complained and got a free retake, which I stupidly forgot to use, but that's another story. Have to say it was handled pretty well though.