Horrible Proctor U Experience – August Flex

Jonah d o

Wanted to share my nightmare Proctor U experience I had on 8/30. I’m curious if this has been happening to other test takers, what action other test takers have taken in these situations, any advice on the matter, etc.

What happened:

1) During the final section of my exam, my proctor left – literally just left our session. This resulted that, in the middle of LG (with only 12 minutes left on the whole exam, mid trying to solve one of the harder games…) I had to wait through a 40-minute delay.

I then had to suddenly pick back up where I left off, & try to finish LG after expending considerable energy & stress - on top of the cumulative fatigue from the other 2 test sections - to figure out why my exam had suddenly stopped, a task made even more difficult by unresponsive & incompetent proctors.

And this wasn’t the only incident that took place…

2) Before the exam had even started, I had to sit through an hour delay in start time due to unresponsiveness/incompetence by Proctor U staff. (I can detail this more in the comments if anyone is interested in what happened).

As a whole, this is extremely disheartening as I felt I was at my peak preparedness, felt confident on exam day, & these incidents took away much of that confidence & definitely hindered my ability to succeed on the exam. I anxiously await September18th score release…

Has anyone had similar experiences? How did you proceed?

I’m hoping for them to accelerate releasing my score, because if I find out I scored lower than I’d like, I'd asked to be registered for the next exam at no cost due to ProctorU's flop. Open to any & all ideas

VerdantZephyr

Score preview sounds like a must for you if you have not already enrolled

karko2525

Sorry you had such a terrible experience with Proctoru. Personally, I didn't have any issues with Proctoru besides a connection issue during my LR section. Most people who had multiple interruptions like you did, called LSAC to complain and LSAC gave them a free re-take either later in the week or next month. Perhaps you can call LSAC tomorrow and see what they can do for you. As mentioned above, I think you should definitely get score preview if that was your first time taking the exam.

jwilton

Almost exact same situation happened to me. When the proctor first introduced himself, I SWORE that he told me the incorrect time for the test. I asked him to review it, he seemed to agree (saying that's what he said in the first place), and we moved on. Fast forward to LG, the last section, and lo and behold I get disconnected from him. I'm doing whatever I can to get his attention but he's clearly not there, so I go to contact ProctorU support. They 'attempt to get in touch with him', at which point his voice comes through and he fixes the problem, logging me back into the test. I pick up right where I left off, beyond stressed out.

After I finish the section, it's time to shut down the test. Except guess what - my original proctor is gone - replaced by someone completely different. She came in, presumably, right when the first guy fixed the problem.

I can only assume that he was trying to leave when the connection mysteriously disconnected (gee, I wonder why?). I can't say anything bad about ProctorU's support as I was shocked at how quick and courteous they were, but the system itself is absolutely awful. This happened to so many people, though oddly it was by far the most common during (a) LG and (b) the last section. Wonder if that's meaningful in any way?

I tried my best not to let it get to me as I rounded out LG, and I think anyone that takes the FLEX online needs to understand technical problems are likely to happen but you have to get through it. After studying so hard, I was of course disappointed when I thought my entire test had disappeared, but I realized that I had put my best effort into the test thus far and wasn't going to give up now. I did lose time because of it, but I would say that unless you lost so much time it would be impossible for you to finish, you should still give it your all. After all, if the technical issues were that destabilizing, LSAC would offer you a retake later in the week.

gulfamhdhillon

For the people who were logged out during the LG portion, were you able to turn this into a positive by using the extra time to play with the game in your mind or rethink previous questions or anything of the sort to help?

audeamus300

My friend whose test also had been disconnected told me that he actually lost time on the clock, and his proctor did not (or could not) add back in the time.

Well, for one thing, he couldn't convince the proctor that he had ~10 minutes left remaining on the clock before getting disconnected (which continued ticking and showed ~5 minutes after getting back on). There was no way for him to prove to anyone that his clock was showing ~10 minutes before the disconnect and that time was ticking during the disconnect, I guess.

Jonah d o

@VerdantZephyr said:
Score preview sounds like a must for you if you have not already enrolled

My thoughts exactly - but this was my 2nd time taking the test so wasn't an option

Jonah d o

@karko2525 said:
Sorry you had such a terrible experience with Proctoru. Personally, I didn't have any issues with Proctoru besides a connection issue during my LR section. Most people who had multiple interruptions like you did, called LSAC to complain and LSAC gave them a free re-take either later in the week or next month. Perhaps you can call LSAC tomorrow and see what they can do for you. As mentioned above, I think you should definitely get score preview if that was your first time taking the exam.

Called LSAC a few times, spoke to staff, got put through to managers, but there wasn't much they could do (as I didn't want my score cancelled as this was my 2nd time taking). Fortunately I still got a score I'm happy with. Can't help but imagine what it could've been without the interruptions though

Jonah d o

@jwilton said:
Almost exact same situation happened to me. When the proctor first introduced himself, I SWORE that he told me the incorrect time for the test. I asked him to review it, he seemed to agree (saying that's what he said in the first place), and we moved on. Fast forward to LG, the last section, and lo and behold I get disconnected from him. I'm doing whatever I can to get his attention but he's clearly not there, so I go to contact ProctorU support. They 'attempt to get in touch with him', at which point his voice comes through and he fixes the problem, logging me back into the test. I pick up right where I left off, beyond stressed out.

After I finish the section, it's time to shut down the test. Except guess what - my original proctor is gone - replaced by someone completely different. She came in, presumably, right when the first guy fixed the problem.

I can only assume that he was trying to leave when the connection mysteriously disconnected (gee, I wonder why?). I can't say anything bad about ProctorU's support as I was shocked at how quick and courteous they were, but the system itself is absolutely awful. This happened to so many people, though oddly it was by far the most common during (a) LG and (b) the last section. Wonder if that's meaningful in any way?

I tried my best not to let it get to me as I rounded out LG, and I think anyone that takes the FLEX online needs to understand technical problems are likely to happen but you have to get through it. After studying so hard, I was of course disappointed when I thought my entire test had disappeared, but I realized that I had put my best effort into the test thus far and wasn't going to give up now. I did lose time because of it, but I would say that unless you lost so much time it would be impossible for you to finish, you should still give it your all. After all, if the technical issues were that destabilizing, LSAC would offer you a retake later in the week.

Sounds like you know exactly what I'm talking about! Very similar situation - Glad someone can relate but ofc sorry you had to deal with that too.

Totally agree with your sentiment about the mysterious disconnections, lack of proctor response, and other issues. And yes you make great points: despite all the bs lol, I definitely did give it my all and tried to keep in mind that it was a risk that I and all test takers assumed by taking the LSAT online. Fortunately, I still got a score that I'm reasonably happy with so it worked out alright

Jonah d o

@gulfamhdhillon said:
For the people who were logged out during the LG portion, were you able to turn this into a positive by using the extra time to play with the game in your mind or rethink previous questions or anything of the sort to help?

No I didn't want to risk it. On the off chance the video of my test were to be reviewed (maybe even due to the random disconnections), I figured if they saw me work on LG during the delay it would be an auto-fail

Jonah d o

@audeamus300 said:
My friend whose test also had been disconnected told me that he actually lost time on the clock, and his proctor did not (or could not) add back in the time.

Well, for one thing, he couldn't convince the proctor that he had ~10 minutes left remaining on the clock before getting disconnected (which continued ticking and showed ~5 minutes after getting back on). There was no way for him to prove to anyone that his clock was showing ~10 minutes before the disconnect and that time was ticking during the disconnect, I guess.

Wow that's pretty ridiculous... I hope your friend was able to get a reasonable response from LSAC

VerdantZephyr

That is tough, glad it worked out well enough, but I would be so upset about being denied to the opportunity to prove my best.