Remote Writing Section Protip: Check your Microphone!

Franz du Hudson

Heed my story as a brief word of caution that could save you some frustration in the future.

When you begin the LSAT writing section, do yourself a favor and flick over to the ProctorU Owl tab that manages your recording and ensure the microphone it's using is set to the correct device. You can do this before opening the reading prompt itself during the pre-check when you hold up an I.D. and take a photo of yourself. The writing sample is self-proctored and does not give you a prompt to check your audio settings. The most it does is flick over to that tab I mentioned to ask what window you want to share (in Chrome, not sure how it looks in Mozilla), but once you hit OK it goes back to the test. Unless you know what you're doing, you'll miss the chance to tweak audio settings.

Storytime:

I have a handful of mics I use for different tasks (Zoom meetings vs. casual PC game nights with pals vs. speaking without a headset on) and sometimes software searching for a mic to record on my computer can become confused by the volume of options. I made the error during my LSAT writing sample of assuming because they were using my webcam to record video, then it would also be recording audio (JY if you read this, don't publicly shame my logical mistake). As you may well know, the writing section is self-proctored, there isn't another human there to say "I can't hear you." So, I went on my merry way, silently crafting a response to the prompt.

I just got an email today asking me to re-take the writing section because my submission did not have any audio due to their software choosing to record an incorrect audio input - in fact, what their software decided to record wasn't even a mic at all. It was a piece of software I use to filter my mic audio output.

If I had been shown the audio input screen more clearly, more deliberately, I would have caught this error immediately and prevented myself from having to take the section twice. When I retook the section today, I found the ProctorU device management screen and manually changed it to my webcam for both video and audio recording. I'm praying this works, otherwise I will be a unhappy camper.