So the afternoon session gave me fits, and I actually didn’t even get to finish every question and ended up having to leave one blank, but with reason. My question is, should I attempt to pursue this with CFAI or it is fruitless…
The place where I took the exam had very low turnout, and as a result they weren’t even admitting people into the testing room until a half hour before the scheduled start time. Additionally, the instructions went really fast, and we spent a good five minutes just waiting around for 9:00 to hit so we could start.
However, in the afternoon, the proctor decided to start the exam a minute early(per my watch, the clock in the front of the room, and per her saying “We’re just going to start a minute early.”). Toward the end of the afternoon session, I was scrambling to finish every question that I thought I could figure out, and then I went on to the ones that would take some time. I had every bubble filled in except for #119, a problem where I was very close to getting the answer as time was expiring. I eventually got to thte point where I realized I wouldn’t figure it out in time, and began to come up with my best guess. As I was deciding my best guess, the proctor called time and I was forced to leave it blank, in obvious fear of being in violation and getting dismissed from the exam. When I looked at the clock, I realized that we’d stopped a minute before 5:00, three hours after the start time. It completely slipped my mind that we’d started a minute early(since I was scrambling to get as many questions complete as possible), and had I known the stopping time, I obviously wouldn’t have left the bubble on the answer sheet blank.
All of that said, is there any sense in me pursuing this with CFAI? While it’s unlikely that one question will affect my pass/fail grade, I can’t even fathom how I’d feel if I fail band 10 after leaving one question blank.
Sorry, but I don’t see what CFAI would posisbly do in this situation. Are they going to give you credit for the blank question? Certainly that’s not fair. Are they going to grade you out of 119 as opposed to 120? Again, I don’t think that’s fair.
At best they’d probably sympathize with your situation a bit, but if they gave you 3 hours exactly for the exam, you had the same amount of time as everyone else who wrote. Sucks that they started a minute early (why on earth the proctor would do this…I have no idea), I could totally see forgetting that during the heat of an exam. CFAI might say they’ll speak with the proctor to ensure it doesn’t happen again, but beyond that I really don’t know what you’d expect them to do.
Proctors are not supposed to start early for this reason you cited. A lot of people self-time based on the time on their watch. Our proctor waited 3-4 minutes in the afternoon session just so we started at precisely 2pm. The best option is to get a watch that counts down time, like a Timex sports watch. I set mine at 3:00 hours, and made sure with about 3 minutes left that I had the last couple of bubbles filled in that I was working on in case time was called before I finished the question.
That sucks, and even more so if you get a band 10, but I’m sure you guessed for other answers. You should have put an answer in. It would have been better.
In my test centre the proctor started the exam at 09:02am as it took a little longer to read out the instructions but she called time exactly at 12:00pm. This was something I was not happy about but what am I meant to do about it
I’d be pissed in both your situations, but Majestic has a particularly legitimate gripe, if true. I’d be heated if I didn’t get my 3 hrs. Used every second.
Yeah, just learn from it and know going forward that once you hit that under 15 minute mark, you really want to make sure you have something bubbled in for every question. Then go back to working on what you need to and if you have to change your answer, change it.
Sorry bud. Also, I wouldn’t waste your time responding to a guy whose entire gimmick is writing in hash tags.
When I got to the exam my watch was 13 minutes ahead of the actual time (same watch as last year which I have not looked at since the last exam but somehow time had changed) and there was no clock visibile to my seat in the room. If I was able to figure it out so can you I laughed at the waaaaambulance comment lol
The Boston test center, they had like… easels with a manual running time check. 2 hours left… 1 hour left… 30 min left… 15 min left, etc. I didn’t bring a watch and there were no clocks but I was well aware of how much time I had left.
AM session started 10minutes late in Riyadh. I hate it because it left us with lesser time in between sessions and I really feel like K had only 1 hour between then. Not a j good feeling for mem
I laughed at the waaaaambulance comment lol