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[Locked] Disturbance in testing room - what happens?
OneFortyDotSix
Alum Member
I took the test this morning in Irvine, California. An incident occurred that I suspect many test takers will file formal complaints regarding. I'm wondering if anyone has an idea what might happen with the test or the scores. Details are as follows:
A test taker showed up at roughly 8:40am, at this time the proctor had already started reading the instructions but the test had not begun. This test taker also brought a large handbag and a cell phone. The proctor told the test taker to place her bag at the front of the room, to which the test taker asked if she could keep it under her desk instead, the proctor correctly responded no. By this point, no mention was made of her visible cell phone, so I spoke up and told the test taker to turn off her cell phone immediately. The test taker turned to the proctor and asked if she could use her cell phone to keep time, the proctor correctly responded no. All of this to say, that there is no possible way the test taker read any of the rules before arriving, or she read them and willfully chose to disregard them. Which also means her signature on the test ticket wasn't a truthful agreement by any stretch. Despite all of this the proctor still registered the test taker and showed her to her seat.
The story doesn't end there
Halfway through section 1, the test taker broke into a violent coughing fit. These coughing fits proceeded intermittently every couple of minutes, and continued until the start of the second section. During the second section the proctor dismissed the test taker to the relief of the rest of us in the room.
During the break and after the test, several test takers communicated their intent to report the disturbance to LSAC, as the coughing fit was extremely distracting, also the proctor obviously violated a number of rules by still admitting the test taker. I'm wondering what has LSAC typically done during situations like this? Will they cancel scores by request without penalty? Will they call a "mistrial" and require a retest for everyone? Can I still keep my score if I want to?
I'm concerned because despite the disturbance I think I did okay, and I would like to keep my score and be done with testing.
If anyone has similar experience or knows what typically happens in cases like this, sharing your insights would be much appreciated.
Comments
So these kinds of things never happened to me, but from what I've read on previous posts the LSAC generally does not take action
.
It's good that you think you did okay regardless!
Selfishly reassuring for me, maybe not for others in the room. Thanks!
aww, that sucks though - sorry that happened.
THIS SOUNDS TERRIBLE, but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask what Elle Woods was like in person.
on the real though, I am sorry to hear about this misery
It sounds like you want to keep your score so I wouldn't say anything at this point. Obviously this disturbance was annoying and violated the rules but if anything were to come of it, it sounds like the other test takers will be the ones to initiate.
It's sorta a screwed up system. There's virtually no benefit to canceling your score, but the only remedy the LSAC really gives for a disturbance is a score cancellation (some lucky ones get to take another exam, but that's SUPER SUPER rare). At the same time, you want law schools to know somebody was hacking up a lung during your exam that kept you from performing optimally.
C'est la vie
This sounds very Orange County and doesn’t surprise me at all (bratty entitled student marching in late with her phone on and then making a scene). I’m sorry to hear about your experience. Like the posters above, it’s doubtful LSAC will do anything, at best you would get a score cancellation.
If you don’t mind me asking — was this the UCI test center or which one? Aside from that, how was the test center? Approx how many people were there and how long did it take to get everyone into the center? Was there multiple rooms for the test or just one big room?
I’m curious bc i’ll likely take it in Irvine in the summer.
I'm sorry this happened to you - sounds very frustrating. I doubt a coughing fit would prompt LSAC to call for a retest and/or cancel your score. From what I've heard, it seems to only happen in really serious instances like when the test is immensely disturbed (i.e. everyone in the room is forced to stop writing for some reason).
I can't even begin to imagine how somebody could just walk in with no regard for the LSAT regulations. That stresses me out just thinking about it. The night before the exam, I probably spent an hour reading every detail on the admissions ticket over and over again to make sure I would not violate the rules on test day lol.
I tested at Irvine Valley College. there were multiple testing rooms and they were all oddly out of sync. For instance during our break there were people testing inside another room, and the proctor in the room would repeatedly step outside to tell (yell at) everyone on break to quiet down. She did this with the door open, so it may have been more of a disturbance to the test takers in the room than the relatively quiet chatter in the hallway.
Do proctors rotate or are they center specific? This experience and the proctor's actions described in my original post would be sufficient reasons to steer clear of IVC. I wish I got their names but after the test I was just happy to be done and out of there.
Also by the sound of the coughing test taker's accent she was a recent immigrant from India. I would never paint with a broad brush, but being from there I can say that there's less cultural importance placed on rules and codes of conduct in India than in the US; that's not by any means an excuse, just a possible explanation.
SMH so hard omg. Thank you for filling me in about the IVC test center but wow please refrain from racial/nationality-based prejudices on here, this isn't the place for that. I live in OC so I was just making a joke about OC stereotypes which has nothing to do with people's race or nationality, I wasn't inviting a race war here. I'm an immigrant too. A big percentage of people in OC are immigrants.
Point noted. To be fair though I wasn't making a value judgement; different cultures place different levels of value on various aspects of human interaction. I was making a cultural observation from having spent a lot of my life in India and having been born there - it really didn't have to do with race.
I don't think anyone is inciting a race war - the OP said she is from India and there are certain cultural customs that are different from US customs and that could be a possible explanation for the test takers conduct. I think that's just pointing out differences in culture and not incitng any kind of race war.
We had a cheerleading team practicing in the hallways of our facility in Albany. It took the proctors an annoyingly long time to take action. But, no worries - it’s not like it was during RC (it was!).
Our proctor cut one section three minutes short and gave an extra seven minutes on another section. It was distracting.
that's awful!! hopefully the extra time was on LG or RC!
@"Dave Swart" - if it was me I might have cancelled on the spot. Can't imagine how distracting that must have been
It didn't bother me. I was on the RC section. Wish it had been the LG. That would have been sweet.
Nah, what OP did was judge someone based on their accent, assume that not only are they from XYZ place, but that they are FOB and/or ignorant of U.S. custom. My mother has an accent and she's lived in the U.S. for like 45% of her life. It would be ridiculous to say that, because she came somewhere late, forgot to turn her phone off, and had a cough, that she must FOB and/or has a lack of knowledge of U.S. custom. Just based off of your judgement of her accent and your assumption that she is from a certain place. A lot of nationalities/subgroups have similar features and accents sound similar and it is hard to tell exactly where someone is from from overhearing a few words. Accents get super mixed when you learn English at a school in a country other than America i.e. I know an olive-skinned Mongolian-Russian guy who's lived in the U.S. for 20 years, he got a PHD in linguistics & English in Russia, and most people think he is French. If someone emigrated at around 14+ years old, their accent will more likely than not stick with them for the rest of their life, regardless of how long they have lived in their new country. It is inciting sh*t to pass judgment on people based on your presumptions of their nationality and cultural background and how long they have lived in the states.
@hiyer1 at my previous LSAT an opera rehearsal began towards the end of section 4. The proctor’s phone also kept going off :@ I didn’t complain, but I wish I had! Three other people sent letters to LSAC about the test centre violations, one cancelled his score and got money back, and two kept their scores and also got money back. I recommend that you write a detailed letter o LSAC and encourage others to do the same! Even if you keep your score, might as well have it on the record that there was a test centre violation (and get some $$ back).
@"surfy surf" , I think you may be taking what I said out of context. Nobody is making character judgements. If you've been to India you may understand what I was trying to communicate. I can give you an example. At a traffic signal in India, when the light turns red, the majority of drivers still try to proceed through it, all at the same time. The red light is seen as merely a suggestion, not a hard and fast rule. Lane lines are seen the same way, the majority of drivers drive outside of their boundaries. Traffic is the easiest example, but there are many others. At the post office or the bank, for instance, despite signs that read "please line up one at a time" most people will clump together and try to get ahead of one another. If you don't stand less than 5 inches from the person in front of you, you will most likely get cut in front of by someone.
If you went to a post office in the US and people did this, you might be surprised and annoyed, just as you would be if everyone was running red lights. In India, however these behaviors are extremely common, and they are not generally met with disapproval by authorities or by regular citizens. That's not to say the people are better or worse, their behaviors are just a reflection of their environment and their culture.
An analogous situation would be the practice of tipping among American tourists when they visit Europe, as the practice isn't as common there among locals. When a waiter in Germany receives a tip from a customer who speaks with an American accent, would it be prejudicial to attribute the tipping behavior to the fact that the customer is probably American? Probably not, just as it really wouldn't be fair to make character judgments about the tipping behavior when it's likely just a product of the culture from which the individual hails.
Hi @"surfy surf" it's okay! OP heard an accent that he would recognize (being from India) and inferred that person also came from India. That's logical. It's quite the opposite of racial or nationality based prejudice.
I know your intentions are good! Let's keep this thread on topic!
Yeah, dont worry about it. The guy getting offended does not even seem to actually be reading your posts... just looks like he wants to be offended for the sake of being offended.
Kay yall can stay assuming that someone having an accent and looking a certain way means that they are fresh off the boat and unaware of the customs of the country they're currently in. That girl could have been from the U.K. for all you know. None of you read a word I wrote. Having an accent does not mean you are fresh off the boat nor does it mean you even recently lived in the place your accent appears to be from. I didnt say anything about character judgments. Your being from a certain place doesnt mean you know with 100% certainty from overhearing a few words the amount of time a person has/has not lived in the U.S/the place you're from and assuming they're from. IDK how you can live in the OC/surrounding areas and not understand that so many people don't even bother learning English after being here for years but they aren't blind to US customs. It is offensive to say -- that person has an accent they must be new here and not understand this culture.
@"surfy surf" to be honest, I think granting people the benefit of the doubt and some cultural latitude is the polite and considerate thing to do. Obviously, I can't know with certainty how recently this individual came to the US, but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that her disregard for the rules was not fueled by lack of consideration for others, but possibly just a result of the mores to which she is more accustomed. If you visited Japan and forgot to remove your shoes at someone's place of business, would you rather they attribute that to rude behavior? Or to you simply not being aware of the custom to remove shoes when indoors?
@hiyer1 I'm sorry this happened to you. I took my exam in Irvine Valley College but I had no issues like yours. Have you contacted LSAC? They will probably offer you another administration. I doubt something like this will happen again. I actually took my exams in Irvine Valley College multiple times and didn't have any issues. I hope you wont in the future as well
@westcoastbestcoast It's good advice...I'll give them a call tomorrow. If anything, it would be good if they at least put a note saying there was a disturbance.
OP didn't say that the person in question was "fresh off the boat," or that they were completely unaware from U.S. customs. Of course the person could have been from somewhere else. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't, what is the big deal? Did OP say something inherently negative about people of the other nationality? No. You are blowing the entire thing wayyyyy out of proportion.
I am an immigrant as well, and readily acknowledge the different cultural standards and the resulting life styles in my country of birth. I also acknowledge the impact my upbringing had on me, even after living the the States for several years.
Where did you see OP claim a 100% certainty? OP said that it was one "possible explanation." Please make sure to read carefully before accusing others of not reading your posts.
I expected better reasoning from 7sage. @"surfy surf" is right and all of the defenses of the OP especially this one and @studentservice clearly miss the important points.
@studentservice suggests the Op was not racist because the OP was born in and lived in India. So it is acceptable to disparage immigrants from a country as long as you have spent some time there. First of all, even if the OP is part of the oppressed group (in this case people who are identifiably Indian due to their accent) it isn't okay to imply Indians are rude to the point that they would bring a cell phone into the testing center. Second of all, it is entirely possible and seems probable that the OP does not have a thick accent and therefore doesn't suffer from, but only perpetrates this kind of oppression.
Then @Pioneer321 jumps in offering these truly unimportant albeit correct rebuttles to inconsequential parts of @"surfy surf"'s argument.
It is true that the OP didn't claim anyone was fresh off the boat. Instead the OP claimed that a reasonable explanation for why someone brought a cell phone into a testing center was that they were Indian.
Did the OP say something inherently negative about Indians? It turns out the OP inplied that Indians disregard rules and that being from India is a potential explanation for ignoring rules in a way which upset the OP and would have upset most other people on this forum. So basically, yes. It could have been reasonable if the OP said in India lots of times rules about bringing cell phones into important tests were ignored. Then we would have an explanation for why the person brought the cell phone and would be extending them "cultural latitude". However, the OP instead pointed out that in India driving habits are different and people are more likely to cut in line in post offices. From that the OP extrapolates that an Indian would bring a cell phone into the LSAT. These are not similar things other than that the OP considers them all rude. Apparently, for the OP, Indian is synonymous with rude.
Then we claim that @"surfy surf" is blowing the whole thing way out of proportion. Great, I'll concede this is a rather small bit of racism. It's not hate speech or a death threat. Its just an insinuation that a person did something you didn't like because of their inferior culture. It's kind of like a toned down version of saying that black kid committed that crime because he was black and has an inferior culture and then justifying this racist claim by saying you lived in an inner city and it was horrible so you recognize the culture. Notably, if a white or black person says this it is still wrong.
Finally, @pioneer321 continues with the irrelevant corrections. The OP never said they were 100 percent sure. They did only say it was a possibility. If a black kid committed a crime and someone said one possibility is that he committed the crime because black people have an inferior culture which doesn't respect law and order the way it ought to, it would still be equally racist.
The tone of the comments by the OP was undoubtedly bigoted. Whether 7sagers ignored that fact because the comments were not about a group typically seen as sufficiently oppressed in the US, because they thought the comments were coming from within the attacked group, or because of a series of poor arguments, it is nonetheless a tragedy. Thankfully, @"surfy surf" did not.
@"Seeking Perfection"
"However, the OP instead pointed out that in India driving habits are different and people are more likely to cut in line in post offices. From that the OP extrapolates that an Indian would bring a cell phone into the LSAT. These are not similar things other than that the OP considers them all rude."
Not true, these are similar actions as they both display a general disregard for explicit rules. It is exactly because I didn't ascribe the test taker's actions to rudeness, but to diregard for rules, that the analogies of traffic and line etiquette in India were fitting.
Also at no point did I make disparaging remarks about Indian people. I recounted actual observations from having lived there, assigning no value to the observed behaviors; I especially didn't ascribe 'rudeness' to any them. I underscored the importance of viewing these behaviors through a lens of cultural relativism, and not using them as a means to make character judgments about any individuals. I especially did not say, or even imply, that this culture is 'inferior' in any sense as an outcome of these observations.
I'll concede that there was an underlying tone of annoyance and frustration in my original post describing the test taker's actions. Frankly, having been one to the test takers in the room I was annoyed. Even at this point however, I did not make any inferences about the character of the test taker or the community to which I believe she belonged.
It was in a later post, not by me, that the test taker was characterized as "bratty" and "entitled", and these traits were associated with the part of the country she likely lives; a part of the country I consider home. This was not a characterization I agreed with, and so I refuted with what I believed to be a much more plausible explanation for the test taker's actions, based on (what I think) is a probable culture from which she emigrated, and based on observed characteristics of that culture (comparatively lower regard for rules).
If it is bigoted to make any cultural observation of a behavior that could by another culture be interpreted as rude, even if that observation comes from firsthand experience of living in a culture, then I believe we disagree fundamentally on what it means to be a bigot.
On the original topic - I just sent a letter to LSAC to report the disturbance and ask that they put a note on the score report. I'll report on the official response as soon as I get it
Driving rules are disregarded across the world particularly in densely populated areas and areas where modes of transport other than cars are common or where cities were not originally designed for cars.
The issue of cutting in line at a post office if there is a gap also does not have some broader meaning about a culture disregarding rules. When people live in close quarters they are more willing to be physically close to eachother. So cutting in line when people are relatively close together is about how comfortable you feel not with breaking a rule, but with being near others.
The notion that an entire people just disregard rules even if they make sense is bigoted. It is not a cultural observation, but a stereotype created to demean people. Whether you unwittingly or wittingly propogate it isn't all that important in the end. You have a responsibility to do better.
@"Seeking Perfection" Regardless of if there are other possible explanations for violations of traffic and queuing rules, they are nonetheless violations of clearly established rules, that is the very definition of disregard.
Also, a stereotype by definition is an idea or notion that is thought to represent an entire group of people; the fallacy of a stereotype is grounded in its erroneously universal application. This was never the nature of my claim, implied or otherwise. The examples I cited all necessitated the conclusion that there were members of the group that were following the stated rules. Even the conclusions I drew were about a culture, not an entire group of individuals. A culture is a shared collection of attitudes and values, one that is by no means reflected in the actions of every member of that social group.
Stating every Indian characteristically breaks rules would be a stereotype, a factually ludicrous statement, and very different from what I said, which is that disregard for rules is generally not met with as much disapproval in India as it is met with in the US. My claim had to do with the culture and environment in India, not with the individuals. Maybe regard and enforcement of rules does have to do with population density, or maybe there are environmental stresses that reduce the relative attention that can be paid to rules - I didn't speculate. All I offered was a rational conclusion based on observed behaviors, a conclusion that I did not by any stretch apply to every individual in India, or make any other insinuations about an 'entire people'
If rules regarding driving are broken in one part of the world at an increased rate not because of the people's disregard for the rules, but because of road infrastructure not designed well for cars and the use of vehicles other than cars you cannot reasonably claim that rule breaking is the result of an increased tendency to break rules in that country.
You also can't claim that if people cut in line at a post office when there is a small gap between people because they are comfortable being in close physical proximity in India and don't in the US because we are not comfortable being right next to each other that it means the people in the US are more rule abiding.
So yes the driving laws and rules against cutting may be disregarded more frequently in India, but not because Indians are more likely to disregard rules in general.
Similarly we couldn't say people in rural areas in the US are less likely to obey laws because they more frequently run stop signs and pass tractors outsude road passing zones. There is an obvious reason for the increased prevalence of this activity and it isn't that rural people are culturally less likely to obey laws. It is that it is safer to drive in the wrong lane or run a stop sign because there is unlikely to be oncoming traffic which you cannot see.
What do you know about this person that you decided might have been breaking rules because she was Indian? You know she has an Indian accent. You then assumed that an explanation for her annoying you by breaking a rule was that she was Indian. That is making assumptions about Indians in general. Just to reiterate, you expressed the belief that an explanation for breaking a rule was that someone is Indian.
It doesn't become acceptable to attribute bad things about someone to their race or nationality because you admit that not all members of the group do it. Imagine back to the earlier example. If someone said something along the lines of... "That man probably committed that crime because he was black." and then conceded that "Of course I know that not all black people disregard the law." they wouldn't become less racist and they would still be stereotyping black people as criminals. The only way it could become less racist would be when the person acknowledged that the person did something that they didn't like not because of their nationality or race, but because that person happened (regardless of their race or nationality) to disregard the said rule or just not know it.
I'm locking this thread.
Don't call people bigoted when they're not being bigoted.
There's enough real oppression, bigotry, racism, and prejudice going on in the country for anyone who wants to fight it. And more power to you. But don't conjure illusory enemies, not here.
There are lots of real LSAT questions people have that need answering on the Forum. Let's turn our attention there please.