June '10 Test Center Annoyances Forum

[T14_Scholly]

I honestly don't know why people don't speak up to the proctor immediately when he/she is making a mistake or doing something unreasonable.

[getitdone]

stoppp tapping ur efffinnn pencils!!

[jarofsoup]

Birds screwing. Some girl making exaggarant pencil marks.


I am not usaully annoyed with it but it was like she was making abstract art.

[malfurion]

This was more funny than annoying, but I saw a guy making what appeared to be a Sudoku on his writing sample.

[mz253]

quinnipiac. super nice. was worried about the construction before, but they put us in a room with very good soundproof. check in super professional, proctors very nice. the only thing is that they sit people next to each other. but it wasn't a big problem because the two people next to me are super super nice.

[filmorejive]

Day of test the building was changed upon arriving at the original building, with a sign taped to the door telling us where to go. There was no initial notice given out prior via email or anything updated on the ticket. This was not marked or notated on campus the day prior (I visited the site to know where I was going). Not that much of an issue, but the initial panic when you get to the room where you think you're taking the LSAT and it's a ghost town and you run the whole "did I come on the right day, the right time, did I miss an email?" panic it really freaks you out for a few minutes. Walking out of the building I noticed the sign and luckily a student was able to tell me where to go (the campus maps didn't do a great job of explaining where the new building was). I'd rather take this inconvenience over distractions during test-taking, but it was rattling for a few minutes nonetheless.

[3|ink]

This was more funny than annoying, but I saw a guy making what appeared to be a Sudoku on his writing sample.

I know a guy who played Hangman on this writing sample sheet. He ended up going to Baltimore.

[oxford_don]

[]

[theZeigs]

The room was nice and cool. We each had our own desk with detached chairs. Lighting was good. It was dead silent with only the white noise of the unusually loud (in a good way) AC.

But my proctor was a smoking hot Eastern European girl who kept giving me the stink eye.

[JennBNYC]

I know someone who took the test at Rutgers - I think Rutgers Newark.

The had about 10 minutes left on the writing sample when a professor burst in saying he had the room at 6:00 and everyone had to leave (it was about 5:55 when this happened).

Somehow the 4 proctors couldn't handle this situation, although the test takers did try to tell the professor to leave.

The proctors told the test takers to finish up the writing sample early.

Do you think the LSAC would do anything about this? Maybe give those people another writing sample? I doubt it but just asking. Did anyone else take the test where this happened, I'm curious if the story is accurate.

Thanks!

I was at Rutgers Newark! This is 100% true. We had to sit and wait about 15-20 minutes while they tried to resolve the problem (before we started the writing section). We could have been almost done by then! There was about 15 minutes left (once we started) and the proctor said we had 5 minutes left because the professor needed the room because of a scheduling conflict. RIDICULOUS!

[truffleshuffle]

I took it at a community college. There was only 15 of us in the room. Each had a huge desk all to ourselves, and there was a digital clock on the wall. Unfortunately we were immediately next to the front doors and heard everyone coming in and out.

One kid took literally 20 minutes to write that damn statement. I think he did it on purpose, cause about ten minutes into it he had a huge smile on his face.

[OklahomasOK]

We didn't get 5 minute warnings, everyone got pissed. Then the proctor says... "OK! Bubble one in... I'll pretend I didn't see it."

I'm seriously debating calling LSAC. I don't want to sound like a pompous douche, but honestly, I worked my ass off for four months and I don't want everyone getting free questions if they didn't finish it in the time allotted.

[Azmatt]

That is kind of a douchey thing to say. Consider that everyone else practiced all that time with the stated 5 minute warning. The proctor needs to go hang himself, but you really can't blame the other test takers for getting ONE opportunity to bubble in an answer.



This thread is great. I almost can't wait to take mine. I hope I have a cryer when I take mine in October.

[greg11a]

Our center was an ice box. But Ill take that over tiny desks and or no AC in South Florida any day. Thinking and heat just dont go well together. We had nice long tables which was a change from when I took it in Feb and had to work with a tiny desk. It was at a hotel conf ctr and there was dead silence the entire time. I cant think of anything that could have gone better.

[hobbsey]

I was surprised how many people were there (150-175 at least, enough to separate into 3 groups and ours had at least 55 people) and how young everyone was. I didn't notice a single person that I thought might be older than me, and I'm only 24. Our ticket specifically told us to park in a certain parking garage and then they told us that they couldn't validate our parking, so that's another 12.50 added to the cost of this thing. Really no big annoyances so nothing to blame if I screwed it up

[lifestooquick]

I took it in Columbus, Ohio and the space set up for 240 when there were 310 of us...so we had to wait for them to setup more tables and chairs. One positive was that we all got our own table! Lots of space

During the first section, the proctor gave us our five minute warning when we actually had 10 minutes left. Which resulted in a bit of panic in a lot of people. I had my own watch, but I wasn't sure if maybe it was wrong/broken/etc so I rushed a bit which sucked. He said he was going to tell LSAC that he did that, but not sure if that means anything.

[kayljsh]

I was so nervous about the proctors based on horror stories Id heard from
others. My biggest complaint was that it was pretty warm in the room. Not horribly so, but the combo of the stress/heat had me sweating a lot, and I was wearing shorts and a basketball jersey.
My palms were pretty sweaty, does anyone think that my answer sheet getting a little wrinkly from the moisture would be a bad thing?
The one awesome thing I'll say is that there was a HUGE digital clock in the room. It made it SO nice and easy to keep time. I never even glanced at my watch.

[Kiersten1985]

Sorry to derail my own thread, but I just found this gem from a similar thread from an earlier test admin:

A girl said to be during the break, "I thought there were only four sections?"

Some girl right before the exam asked the proctor, "So how often are you going to call 'time out?' Like every 8 minutes?"

Really?

[tipler4213]

A light above my desk was burning out and flickering the entire time...swear I about had a seizure. Other than that, it was good though.

[Foxxtrot]

I think the guy in front of me pooped himself when he saw the first section...cause as soon as the books were open I was hit in the face
with sewer-odor...that persisted the whole 5 hours...
This was particularly annoying considering how great the test conditions were otherwise (room was right temperature, over six feet of desk space to work,
awesome chairs, etc...)

[gorockies]

One of our proctors looked like a bouncer. It was 109 here yesterday so the AC was cranked which was nice. Nobody did anything bad because this bouncer guy walked around looking like he was going to kill somebody. Before we started, two people who knew each other just said hi to each other and he put them on opposite sides of the room!

[Jrugg88]

My proctor put a giant clock in the front of the room. She also wrote the "start" and "end" time on the board. All was well for sections 1 and 2. Then on section 3, she called "5 minutes remaining" when the clock and "end" time indicated 10 minutes remaining. People, including myself complained, and she simply said the clock must have broken/ become slow by 5 minutes and there was nothing she could do. SUCKS.

She then shorted us by 2-3 minutes on section 4. At least 10 people in the room, myself included, had our own watches on it and we all had 2-3 minutes left. Obviously this doesn't "prove" anything per say, but taken together with her previous error, it suggests she was incompetent and not able to time properly. SUCKS.

[itseightfortyfive]

Originally I thought I would complain about tiny desks (I know lots of people have them) but them something amazing and awesome happened. We had many extra desks in the room (maybe 10 people in the room total) and some guy gets the idea to put a second desk next to his. Nobody noticed until the proctor calls in the test supervisor to ask if it's ok. He says, I guess so, as long as everybody is still far apart. Bingo - everyone in the room now has a decent amount of desk space.

This probably helped my score by a few points.

We did the same thing. I was really proud of our test takers too bc originally i asked if i could get a second desk like some of the others and the proctor told me if i did i couldn't use it. But then we all collectively argued that in other testing centers they have large, long desks to work on. This totally changed their mind and I thought it was a great way to, in true LSAT spirit, warm up for the strengthen/weaken LR questions. lol

[quishiclocus]

At least some of these sound like real, significant problems. My room had some work going on outside that was not that loud and I honestly didn't even notice the noise and I was right by the windows. The proctor brought it up and asked if anybody wanted to sign a statement that it was disruptive... and like every last person in the room (myself excepted) wanted to sign it. Like it was going to have any impact. I didn't want to fuss with anything like that on what little break we got.

People seemed to really have the impression that somehow theirs might be graded differently because of it. Yeeah, right.

[angiej]

Fellow lsat taker sitting next to me kept tapping and swinging her feet around THE ENTIRE TIME. It was impossible to ignore since it was right next to my flip up auditorium style desk. I was allowed to move during the break, but it def affected my performance the first 3 sections.