HORRIBLE PSI EXPERIENCE
I just took Construction Evaluation Exam at PSI center in Alexandria VA. The case study documents were illegible and would not load properly. An entire case study documents did not have full words and wouldn't load all of the information on the page. The construction schedule only showed like every other letter of each word and was not possible to decipher. It was unfair to be asked so many questions that referenced the schedule when the schedule was not legible or usable.
Mid test, the exam kicked me out of the portal and the testing administrator had to help troubleshoot. I was able to resume my test, but the clock kept running and I lost about 30 minutes of exam time.
The PSI experience has been horrible. This is the third test I've taken with PSI and each time I've had awful technical challenges and issues with the software. The first time, none of the tools worked (highlight/strikeout/etc.) and I had to switch computers mid exam. The second time, it took them 20 minutes just to get the exam to load for me to start. and the Third experience is described above.
Unacceptable testing environment and added stress to already challenging exams.
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Hi Nupur,
Thank you for posting about your testing experience. Please reach out to NCARB Customer Service, and they will provide you with additional support.
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I had a very similar experience with PSI. Of the 4 exams I took with PSI in Charlotte, NC, 3 of them featured gibberish and windings in the reference materials and the case study materials. It's a real shame that PSI has been such a step down in quality. I never had any issues with Prometrics.
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I completed the ARE last year...and I certainly had trouble with Prometrics. I had one exam two years ago where the computer crashed twice! As if it's not stressful enough! When the proctor came over to restart the computer I saw it was Windows 7! At that point, Microsoft had stopped all support for Windows 7 a couple years previous. I was incredulous. All the fees they get and they can't even run it on software that is currently supported?
Man, I could go on and on. Yeah...the loading of the pdfs on the crappy internet bandwidth that the centers have. All because NCARB thinks somehow we are going to steal snippets of IBS, Life Safety and made-up local zoning codes. How would we steal it? And why the heck would we want to??? They could have the pdfs as part of the software, loading instantaneously... but they won't. And "the whiteboard" replacing real paper, the Etch-a-Sketch CAD on the Version 4.0 exams...
I told the proctor (not that it does any good of course)..."there's no risk of us stealing our scrap paper notes or online pdfs. Not only is it unethical, it does us no good. You want to know what the biggest security breach is? At any time, someone could leave the testing room, go down the hall, go to the bathroom, and pull out some notes they had previously hidden behind the toilet". They kind of were surprised,. like it had not occurred to them..."ohh yeahhhh....hmmmm". But that's OK, check my eyeglasses for computer chips and cameras and run that magnetic wand over me in case I'm....carrying....what exactly? And let me take the buggy exam on a Fred Flintstone computer.
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I had a similar experience last week at a testing center for my final PDD exam. My first two questions were hotspot and drag and drop questions, and the graphic was completely missing. I told the proctor immediately and they called someone for tech support, who told them there was nothing they could do but I should keep trying and they'll fix my cut score to reflect the questions I was able to answer. I didn't like that but that's the option they gave me. I kept going and found out that not only did those questions not work, neither did my highlighter, strikethrough, references, white board, calculator, OR ANY OF THE CASE STUDY MATERIALS. I left half of the questions unanswered because I knew PSI was not going to do anything to help me but I thought they would fix my cut score, as they promised. I ONLY kept going with my exam because of this promise. Needless to say, I did not pass, though based on my score report, it seems likely I would have passed if they only scored the questions I was able to answer. I immediately called NCARB and they gave me a seat credit that I can't use until October. Haven't heard anything in days, and the customer service rep who was helping me got nasty ("per my last email...") when I wouldn't accept the seat credit and leave her alone. I am so upset about this entire experience, I have passed all my other exams on my first try since starting in June of this year, and I have no reason to think I wouldn't have passed this one either based on what I saw on the exam and how it was going. I was going to give them a few days to do the right thing before I started blasting them on here, but I haven't heard anything beyond "we're investigating" and them marking my customer service request ticket as 'solved.' It is most certainly not solved, and this is COMPLETELY unacceptable.
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