Digital White Board
The digital white board is a piece of Gunk. It is ineffectual, laborious, counter intuitive and consumes way to much time to use. A pen and a piece of paper have been the Architect's tools for more than five millennia, I see no reason why these should be denied in the ARE tests and thus impede creativity.
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I could not agree more. I'm seriously struggling just to use it on practice exams and it's infuriating knowing how much extra time it's going to cost me on the real exam just to get my thoughts out. The text tool is absolute garbage, the pen tool is comparable to that of Microsoft Paint, and the whiteboard takes up so much space on the screen. I don't know if this is just for the practice exams, but I can't even drag it around on the screen coherently- it jumps and locks either to the top of the screen or the bottom. The whole thing was clearly rushed and is now an additional burden on the exam.
Not to mention what you also noted above about how pencil & paper have been used forever. You would think that NCARB would have an idea that the people who are going to be taking these exams tend to be visual people who need to sketch out scenarios. I think taking that away from us is an unsurmountable disadvantage.
I also am really struggling as I used to do a sort of "brain dump" at the beginning of the exam with things that I needed to just write down so I didn't have to mentally store even more in my head. The inability to do this adds yet another stress to an already extremely stressful process.
Overall NCARB- the whiteboard is absolutely not going to help anyone and is a clumsy and inefficient tool and I really think you're going to see that reflected in the exam scores. Seriously bad call on your part.
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Agree with all of this! Boo! The window is hard to move and the mouse is hard to write numbers with, the close bottom gets covered by the bar at top. This is going to slow me down. I can't even read my own handwriting. I suggest using text boxes. Defeated, again! I signed up to take test at testing center to avoid computer issues, but thanks again for more computer challenges! Yes, love it!
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I can't explain exactly HOW MUCH I HATE THIS WHITE BOARD!!!! Stupidest interface I've ever had to use. It doesn't allow me to work through math the way I need to and I literally could have failed just because I kept having to redo work to track all of what I had already done. I HATE THIS THING. The text boxes are clunky and not intuitive about how to click back into them. The pen is SLOW and can't keep up with what I'm writing so my 9 becomes a 7 or a 1 which is NOT HELPFUL when doing math!!!!! If they changed this so that people who are testing from home get the same experience, I say they just have to deal with it. If you go into the testing center you should be rewarded with PAPER AND PENCIL!!!! PLEASE!!! I honestly don't know how I will make it though a more math heavy test with this stupid tool, the Practice Management exam was torture with this thing! They should also allow you to strikethrough and highlight in documents of the case studies!
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Hey Wanda -
I totally feel your pain on this, and it's important to share your feedback with NCARB! This reminds me of the vignettes on the version of the ARE that I took - not sure if you're familiar with them but they were graphic problems that have since been replaced by case studies. Long story short, you had to solve these using the MS-Paint equivalent of a drafting program. Imagine spending your whole career using the latest and greatest in architectural visualization technology, only to be reduced to such a program on test day!
But what I realized is this - everyone testing had to pass using the same exact tools, and fifty-something percent of people were passing. If they could do it, so could I, so I just accepted it for what it was and dedicated myself to absolutely owning that silly program.
I know it's frustrating now and I've been in your shoes - I assure you that I was completely frustrated by the vignettes back then, but now when I look at my license on the wall I hardly ever think of them at all.
Good luck on your next exam and practice, practice, practice with the Whiteboard when you're taking practice exams so it's not an impediment to your success!
Chris Hopstock RA
Black Spectacles
ARE Community
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