My ExamSoft Nightmare . . . with Happy Ending
I almost forgot to post this: I have something important to say about taking the bar with a laptop. During last year’s California exam my laptop crashed in the middle of a Performance Test, and I ended up having to write the remainder of the exam by hand. This post is about how to avoid my experience.
The trouble hit after I had spent about 15-20 minutes reading the PT file, taking notes, and outlining my answer by hand, during which time my computer’s power-save function set in and dimmed the screen. When I turned to begin typing, the computer not wake back up. I tried key taps ("tap . . tap-tap . . .TAP-TAP . . . TAPAKAACCKALAK-TAPTAPTAP!!!"). I tried mouse movements ("scribble . . . scribble-scribble-click-click"). I tried unplugging and re-plugging my power cord . . . nothing. Nada. Zippo. Zilch.
So, after a bit of fretting, I tried rebooting the machine. Nope. This freaked out the ExamSoft program -- it booted straight into ExamSoft and promptly reported an “error” message that left me unable to (1) enter ExamSoft or (2) boot my computer back to Windows. There I was, stuck in blue-screen error land, while everyone else was ferociously typing away.
I raised my hand and looked for my elderly proctor, but got no response. I stood, surveyed the room, and spotted her in a chair near the far end of my row. Fast asleep. I walked over, woke her, and asked for paper to hand-write my exam. After what felt like an eternity she returned, I set my computer aside, and returned to the PT answer I had outlined by hand. Shaken and more than a little stressed I looked down at the page and discovered that nothing -- and I mean NOTHING -- I had scrawled less than a half hour ago made any sense whatsoever. I recognized my handwriting and I knew what the individual words meant, but I couldn’t fathom how they might be related to one and other or point toward a logical legal exposition. (Comparison here to an unpleasant, public acid trip would not be inapt.) Not only could I not remember the structure of my answer, but I could not even remember the basic issue in the fact pattern. It was all the way back to square one for me.
I set to work, re-read the file, wrote my answer by hand, submitted that sucker in a giant paper envelope, and thought the worst was behind me.
Nope.
Remember how I couldn’t reboot my compute or enter ExamSoft? Well, I also had not yet uploaded my answers from the previous day, and I certainly couldn’t upload them now. Half the bar exam was sitting on my computer, with no apparent way to get it to the graders. When the exam ended I entered phase two of my personal little nightmare: an evening trying to multitask (1) being on hold with ExamSoft (the week of the bar exam is an, uh, “busy time” for the two freaking people they have doing customer service) and (2) celebrating with my classmates. Ultimately, with the midnight deadline fast approaching, I found myself:
Here is how to NOT share my journey. ExamSoft, which operates by locking out access to all other files on the computer, also locked out access to whatever file was needed for my computer’s screen to “wake” from power-save mode. I later heard that similar issues can arise with automatic antivirus and updates settings. It turns out that one simple little setting change before the bar exam -- i.e., had I told my computer never to sleep or dim while plugged in -- would have spared me all that time, misery, and anxiety.
And that, Dear Reader, is my advice to you: disable your antivirus software’s automatic updates function and double-check your power-save settings. It will be 20 seconds well spent.
Oh, and one other thing: if you DO end up writing by hand, it’s actually not all that bad . . . really. I promise.
The trouble hit after I had spent about 15-20 minutes reading the PT file, taking notes, and outlining my answer by hand, during which time my computer’s power-save function set in and dimmed the screen. When I turned to begin typing, the computer not wake back up. I tried key taps ("tap . . tap-tap . . .TAP-TAP . . . TAPAKAACCKALAK-TAPTAPTAP!!!"). I tried mouse movements ("scribble . . . scribble-scribble-click-click"). I tried unplugging and re-plugging my power cord . . . nothing. Nada. Zippo. Zilch.
So, after a bit of fretting, I tried rebooting the machine. Nope. This freaked out the ExamSoft program -- it booted straight into ExamSoft and promptly reported an “error” message that left me unable to (1) enter ExamSoft or (2) boot my computer back to Windows. There I was, stuck in blue-screen error land, while everyone else was ferociously typing away.
I raised my hand and looked for my elderly proctor, but got no response. I stood, surveyed the room, and spotted her in a chair near the far end of my row. Fast asleep. I walked over, woke her, and asked for paper to hand-write my exam. After what felt like an eternity she returned, I set my computer aside, and returned to the PT answer I had outlined by hand. Shaken and more than a little stressed I looked down at the page and discovered that nothing -- and I mean NOTHING -- I had scrawled less than a half hour ago made any sense whatsoever. I recognized my handwriting and I knew what the individual words meant, but I couldn’t fathom how they might be related to one and other or point toward a logical legal exposition. (Comparison here to an unpleasant, public acid trip would not be inapt.) Not only could I not remember the structure of my answer, but I could not even remember the basic issue in the fact pattern. It was all the way back to square one for me.
I set to work, re-read the file, wrote my answer by hand, submitted that sucker in a giant paper envelope, and thought the worst was behind me.
Nope.
Remember how I couldn’t reboot my compute or enter ExamSoft? Well, I also had not yet uploaded my answers from the previous day, and I certainly couldn’t upload them now. Half the bar exam was sitting on my computer, with no apparent way to get it to the graders. When the exam ended I entered phase two of my personal little nightmare: an evening trying to multitask (1) being on hold with ExamSoft (the week of the bar exam is an, uh, “busy time” for the two freaking people they have doing customer service) and (2) celebrating with my classmates. Ultimately, with the midnight deadline fast approaching, I found myself:
- Sitting on the sidewalk above the 19th Street Oakland BART station,
- Drunk,
- Poaching internet from some unsecured wireless network,
- Listening to a very tired ExamSoft representative recite strange combinatons of letters and numbers for me to type into a command line I had never seen on my computer, all in an effort to
- Complete the upload of my precious, precious bar exam answers.
Here is how to NOT share my journey. ExamSoft, which operates by locking out access to all other files on the computer, also locked out access to whatever file was needed for my computer’s screen to “wake” from power-save mode. I later heard that similar issues can arise with automatic antivirus and updates settings. It turns out that one simple little setting change before the bar exam -- i.e., had I told my computer never to sleep or dim while plugged in -- would have spared me all that time, misery, and anxiety.
And that, Dear Reader, is my advice to you: disable your antivirus software’s automatic updates function and double-check your power-save settings. It will be 20 seconds well spent.
Oh, and one other thing: if you DO end up writing by hand, it’s actually not all that bad . . . really. I promise.
Labels: Bar Exams, Technology Rants
posted by Patrick at 12:05 PM
12 Comments:
Thanks, Patrick. I immediately changed my power settings.
Me too. Much appreciated.
And again! Thanks.
Thanks Patrick!
Best of luck on the Washington bar!
Thanks.
". . . Washington is a community property state. All property acquired before marriage is presumed . . . " wait, why do I have to do this again, again?? ;)
(And best of luck to all of you, too. It's stressful and miserable as can be, but Boalties tend to do great, and I'm sure you will, too!)
i love happy endings.
There I am, day 1, typing out some essays, feeling confident, when I start to notice some of my keys aren't registering. At first its just the "l," "p," "o," and "m" keys that aren't showing up. No matter how many times I hit the key on my laptop, it just doesn't show up.
So I decide, fine, those aren't totally critical letters, and I've already typed a few of them in this essay. So I put the "o" into my clipboard and crtl+v everytime I need it. Its slowing me down a little, but not too bad.
But then more keys go... the y, h, and n. They just won't work. Same story. This is too many to copy and paste, so I decide to just type without them, and I can do a find/replace later to fix the common words at the end.
Then the period and comma keys stop working. At this point, the calm-through-pressure Brandon dissolves into a "what the f-"-Brandon who decides to scrap the whole idea. I type out "ke b ard fai ed-see paper" and start finishing the essay on paper.
When I finished the exam, I high-tailed it over to the closest walmart to buy a cheap USB keyboard and a screwdriver. I tried to fix the laptop keyboard myself, but it turned out that the keyboard ribbon had been slowly detaching itself from the motherboard. It wasn't completely separated, and that's apparently why I had partial and degrading functionality - it was coming apart as I typed. Crazy. I didn't realize it at the time, but further investigation later revealed that the bindings had completely melted, which was likely the result of the intense summer studying and typing that I had put this keyboard through in July. Perhaps there is such a thing as studying too much...
Anyways, it all worked out. In the end, I had handwritten two of my exams and typed four (using the USB keyboard on the second day of essays). And I survived and passed.
The moral of the story is the same as Patrick's: if anything goes wrong, stay calm, hand-write, and you'll do just fine.
Best of luck, Boalties!
I'm afraid to ask this...
Does anyone have experience with uploading their exam after the deadline? Like 30-45 minutes after?
Supposing I did that, because I'm foolish and forgetful, am I a goner???
I don't want to speculate, since I have no experience with it, but I seem to recall some stories about this from years past. You may want to inquire with the Authority as to how they handle it.
Thanks. The official position seems to be that they don't grade anything no uploaded on time. But I will see if I can get more details on the phone from someone in the coming week.
For future bar-takers: No matter how done you feel at the end of that last day, it's not over until you've uploaded!
Software trouble plagued the summer '04 CA bar, too, although it may have had something to do with a bad call by the proctors. Writing by hand is no burden whatsoever. I can't imagine relying on a machine.
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