Take the case study 1st!!!!!!
My result: Get a free seat and wait for 60 days to re-take the exam.
My experience about it: Take the case study 1st!!!! If you see less than 75% of the questions, you can reschedule without waiting for 60 days.
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It was my 4th time to take ARE and it was my 1st time to took PA.
I took exam this morning (Jan. 19. 2023) in division programming analysis. The case studies only show me one tab file (there are about 5 tabs include site plan, program, code, zoning). I can't see the other tab's content. Both of the case studies has the same kind of technical issue. The worker told me either I can stop the exam leave there and call NCARB, or keep finishing the exam. Without the scenario information, I can't answer those questions. But I already finish 60 questions of the exam and there were 1 hr left. I wish I can finish it and pass it. Then I won't need to deal with NCARB.
But I failed, I overestimate myself. I called NCARB, the representative told me they need 5 work days to research it.
I took exam in Richardson, TX . The PSI workers there are nice, but they can't help at all with the technical issue. I even feel they don't know what the case study user interface should be. I showed them the file was "frozen", not sure if they can understand it.
And I don't know what will the result be. What should I do if it happen again?
NCARB said the technical issue is 1%, but to me it is 25%. It's totally NCARB's fault but I have to take the result. I already spent money and time to prepare it. I don't want to pay for it again and I don't want to wait for 60 days to retake it.
Let's see.
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Official comment
Hi all,
Please reach out to our Customer Relations team, if you haven't already, and report your issues so we can work with PSI to ensure this doesn't happen in the future. NCARB's Customer Relations team will also be able to provide additional support on your technical issues.
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I had the same experience. I also took the PA exam in the morning of 01/19/23. The tabs on both case studies were frozen. There was nothing PSI could do about it. I called NCARB after the test and reported the incident. I also sent them an email via the customer service on the NCARB site. They said they usually respond in 5days. Now I received my test score saying I failed and can only resched after 60days. We should not have to pay again for rescheduling the exam because it was not my fault that there's a technical error in their software.
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@Yuan Ma How is that possible.
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The exact same issue happened to me this morning and 2-3 others as well in NYC . I took CE division and the case study tabs would not work. This is so frustrating and I remember seeing an ncarb policy where if you see more than 75% of the questions you are bound to the 60day retake policy and whatever score you received will be valid regardless.
The proctor told me when I reported the problem that ncarb is already aware of the issue, yet why not alert if to the issue prior to taking the exam. Obviously most people who are already on the case study portion would have seen more than 75% of the questions. What happens if this happens again ? -
Its extremally frustrating to know that this is happening to SO MANY of us, and yet NCARB is not willing to do anything about it... THEIR SOFTWARE ISSUE, AND WE HAVE TO BE PENALIZED waiting the 60 day period to retake the exam... when it was CLEARLY their fault on THEIR software... so frustrating.... and unfortunately I dont thins there is anything we can do about it... Is there???
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This happened to me today on my PA exam, and I failed. Both case study tabs are frozen. I contacted PSI technical support and they seem to have no idea and wasted my exam time asking questions. They also did not tell me that I could end the exam and re-schedule. I am not sure how many questions I have seen when I discovered the issue because i did not follow the sequence exactly. I had to guess through the 14 questions. It is really frustrating. I think it is acceptable to get a free seat credit and retake after 60 days, but It is unfair to be counted as a fail. Also, they should make sure that it won't happen again! It is ridiculous...
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YUUUP, happened to me today when I went to take the PA exam, also experienced the frozen tabs on the practice exams I took last week. I think it sould be linked to using the highlighter tool.
Looks like this is going to be a lot of people not getting compensated for the lost time and not knowing when we will get to retake an exam that won't have this glitch!!! The more I read about this the more I'm angry with this entire process. These tests are so overly time sensitive as is, is there any way they can make this process more difficult? Be Darn sure there is, just ask the question and case study writers
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Jun,
It is a very real issue, but I think the safest route, if you're ready to take the test, is to do the case study questions first and don't use the highlighter or strikeout text tools, I think it's possible that is linked to causing the problem. Take the practice exam and see for yourself what happens if you use those tools on the case study questions.
Just don't do what others did and do the first 60 questions because if you see over 75% of the test before the problem happens, they might make you wait 60 days to retake the exam. I haven't heard back from Ncarb yet so I'm not sure what they will do.
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I don’t see anywhere in the NCARB or PSI test agreement anything that mentions if you see less than 75% of the test you can retake in less than 60 days. I was never notified about this before taking my PDD test yesterday although this issue has already been made aware by NCARB as per their employee who answered my call as well as PSI so how do I get penalized for this ?
NCARB please advise
Thank You
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Yvette, I actually looked for it after being told by NCARB and it is indeed in the Guidelines. There is chapter on technical issues, with a section if it happens online and a section if it happens in person (same procedure) pages 23 and 32. I also had no idea, being one of the first ones to report the problem I couldn’t apply the suggestion. But apparently you can reschedule if you keep below that percentage and within the first 30min or so (based on what they told me on the phone the following day)
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Thanks Jessika, so how come NCARB customer service doesn’t know about this ? When PSI associate called them to ask for assistance they said they were not able to advise her as they are still investigating the problem. And when she asked if she should cancel my test or continue they still had no clear answer for her.
NCARB please take responsibility of this.
Your personal who are answering technical questions phone calls are not aware of this policy.
Thank You -
The guidelines are an incredibly long document, personally I went through them once way long before sitting the exam and then forgot about them, which is why I’m sharing the same exact location for the protocol, so who ever is reading this and experiences the same issue can refer to something specific instead of a “I read in a comment that..” “I was told that”. Being that said it’s ridiculous that the people instructing the exam don’t know them by heart as this is their only job! My proctor allegedly “paused” my exam only to find out later through NCARB that they really didn’t and that I was put on a break which does not extend time….and when I asked for an explanation the answer was “I am not familiar with your exam structure” so that is unacceptable. The guidelines are actually in our favor, if only I had known about them before. So yes, there is a written spelled out rule on the 60 days/seen % and we can use that, but instructors are barely prepared and completely unaware of what our exam even looks like :(
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Would be a great idea IF NCARB DIDN'T BAN YOU FROM GOING BACK TO QUESTIONS AFTER TAKING A BREAK!!!!!
Seems pretty wild that those who started Are 5.0 when it first came out tested under COMPLETELY DIFFERENT test conditions then what is being given today. No paper, can't go back, honestly pretty garbage from NCARB
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