I took the LSAT today remotely. In the final 7 mins of the second section, I experienced a tech problem. I tried to "reset" the answers that I had previously hidden, during process of elimination. The answers would not reset and remained grayed out. I was unable to change my answer. I informed the remote proctor. They paused the test. When it resumed, the problem persisted.
I requested more help from the proctor. They didn't know what to do. I told them I wanted to call LSAC. They told me to exit Prometric and call them. When I started to exit the test, I got a message that said I may be forfeiting my answers if I exit. I wrote the proctor and said I did not want to lose all the hard work I had done on the first 2/3s of the test. I asked if there was another way to do it without losing my work. I waited. And waited. And waited. No reply. I asked numerous questions. No reply. 15-ish mins passed without any help (it had now been about 45 mins since the tech problem appeared). I said aloud for the recording, and also typed into the chat, that I needed to call LSAC for help. I said that I was going to get my cell phone and call them. I waited, to give time for feedback from the proctor. No one came to my aid to confirm if I could exit Prometric without losing my data, and no one told me that I couldn't call LSAC for help.
I then proceeded to get my cell phone and dial LSAC in front of the camera, all the while speaking aloud my plans in advance, and as I was doing what I was doing. No word from the proctor. As soon as LSAC picked up my call, a Prometric security agent came on the mic and told me that I had violated the no-phone policy and my test was invalidated, and I was being kicked out of the test. No help whatsoever, and then BOOM.
I will be filing an official complaint with LSAC. (Other test challenges included different remote proctors applying rules differently for my accommodations, resulting in unnecessary room scans and wasted time.)
Have any other recent test takers run into a similar problem, where you couldn't select or edit an answer choice? I'm terrified to retest and get almost done only to run into the problem again...
I hope my story helps some other remote test takers. I still don't know if exiting Prometric would have saved or lost my testing data. And I don't know if the tech problem could have been resolved. (I'm assuming I would have had to retest no matter what.) But whatever you do, no matter how awful the proctors are being and no matter how long it takes, do NOT call LSAC until AFTER the test is done.
5 comments
Same issue here with hiding answers on the remote test!
@Kevin_Lin have you heard if in-person testers have run into this tech glitch of not being able to reset answer choices? I had this problem. Another remote tester messaged me and said they had the same problem. I see another post from a remote tester who also couldn’t reset the ACs. What gives? I need to decide if I’m going to retake this remotely or try to get a private room at a Prometric facility. This issue shouldn’t exist, period. But could the interface perform better at a testing facility than remotely? I’m terrified of retaking this, getting hours into the test once again, and not getting my score counted. Thank you.
@Aquamoon I haven't seen any reports of in-person testers having this glitch. I suspect the interface is different in-person since you don't have the remote proctor looking at you. It does look like in-person testers on average have had fewer issues, so if you want to maximize the chances of a smooth test that sounds like the way to go...on the other hand you will have more chance of noise and disruption from other testers around you. I have to think the LSAC will fix the answer selection glitches for the Sept retest, but unfortunately we can't know for sure.
By the way, you mentioned you were worried about the space at the top and the wideness of the interface. What did you think about those?
@Kevin_Lin thanks, Kevin. I’m asking to retest at the Prometric center. It turns out they have a private room. The white space at the top was just as large as in the screenshot I posted. F11 works in Law Hub’s practice tests, to expand the test content and reduce the white space. But it did NOT work in the real exam. I originally had a 27” monitor set up for my test but due to tech problems checking in, I had to change gears and test on a 17” laptop. The white space overwhelmed my screen. There were two scroll bars in the exam. One for the page itself and one for the answer choices. Scrolling in one of them made it impossible to see the timer/countdown at the top of the page. The menu bar on the left of Law Hub’s practice test, however, went away, so width was less of an issue. The overall remote testing experience and interface were unfortunately very different than both 7Sage’s and Law Hub’s practice tests, and not nearly as good. Thank you for your help and advice.
@Aquamoon
Screenshot of an email I got from LSAC after I repeatedly asked them to specifically address the exact issue I experienced. They conveniently won’t answer if the issue WILL be resolved by the retake day. Just that they will tell their support team so they “can” correct it. @Kevin_Lin , fyi.