Looks like Prometric have struck again.

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Hi all!
I'm new to the forum and after having read threads about similar problems felt I had to add mine.

I recently sat a Microsoft 70-290 exam with a Prometric host and I had a very bad 'technical experience'.

At first my exam was going fine then as I finished and started reviewing my answers with about 30mins left on my timer, my exam started to crash and eventually returned to the beginning of my exam and the timer gave me 2 minutes to finish the exam from start to finish. Before I could respond to what had happened I was told by the screen I had failed the exam, understandably as I only had 2 minutes to complete a 3 hour exam! When I went out to the lady who had set my machine up all she did was shrug her shoulders at me and gave me my printout and mumbled that it had never happened before and that she would have to check the machine was working for the next candidate! I had no apology but was given a Prometric Candidate card with a number to ring for advice.

When I got home, I rang Prometric to try and find out what had happened and to see if the restart had affected my results or if I had genuinely failed my exam. I was told by the gentleman on the telephone that he genuinely did not know and to check the Prometric Website on Monday afternoon for my official result as the systems would not have been updated until then. I checked on Monday and my results were noted as 'Pending' and remained so until Thursday where my exam status changed to 'No-show'.

I again rang the Prometric number on the Friday and got through to a lady who told me if I had experienced a technical problem I should have received a 'ticket number' (which I did not receive) and that the offices were closing and that nobody was around to be able to help me and she did not have 'the power or authority' to check the system to see what had happened then proceded to give me 2 options. One was a telelphone number to ring on Monday but I would have to be able to ring this number before 4pm GMT which is quite impossible for myself as I do not leave work until 4pm and personal calls during working hours are also quite impossible. My other option was to write to an email address, which i did and will have to wait til next Tuesday for a reply.

 

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Not sure the blame rests entirely with Prometric... sounds like the testing center should share a bit of the blame as well. The testing center gave you very minimal support. Had I been the testing center manager or owner, I'd have rang Prometric up for you.

 

I didnt intend for my post to sound like i was blaming Prometric entirely, sorry if it sounds it. Rest assured I'm not too impressed with the test centre services also and have lodged a complaint with them as well.

 

It's quite a common occurrence for exams to crash during testing. It's extremely rare though for you to be returned to the beginning of the test as the answers you give are not only stored on the machine you are working from but also the server in the test centre, following an interruption you would be returned to the last question you were working on.
As you had completed the test and were on the review screen, you would have been returned to the first question. The answers you gave previously though, should still have been logged, so you may find that you did unfortunately fail. Was there a score on your test sheet?
Nevertheless even if you did, you were robbed of your review time where you could have corrected a few answers.
The procedure for interruptions as yours is to deal with them there and then, the administrator should have contacted the Prometric helpdesk who would have reset your test for you. As the test had shown as completed they would probably not have been able to do this until the original results file was received, what they would do then is issue a ticket number. This ticket number should then be used by the test centre administrator to contact customer care, this is customer cares authority to issue a free retest.
Sounds to me like you got a right lazy bint, I therefore doubt that she would have sent an incident report to Prometric at the end of the day.
Keep hold of your score report, this is your evidence that you were not a no show, also keep in mind that you would have signed in and out of the test centre and signed a copy of the candidate rules agreements, these are kept on file at the test centre and also prove you did attend your test.
Your options now though are pretty limited as far as help goes, only the customer care dept will be able to help you out.

 

Sounds an unlucky incident, I think its most likely the test centre made an error of some kind - the 'shrug of shoulders' you describe doesn't exactly sound reassuring.

When I sat CCNA, on sitting down to start the exam, the screen went completely blank, so I put my hand up thinking the test administator would see me on video and come in to investigate, but no-one showed up, so I decided to investigate it myself and found the video cable at the back of the LCD panel was not securely plugged in, with the screws not having been tightened up.

During my N+ exam at another center, I could hear quite clearly a lecture taking place in the next room through a very thin wall - I think quietness is much preferable during an exam.

 

When I did my last exam I travelled a little bit further to do it because I knew the test centre would be spot on. There were closer ones but I wasn't going to risk it.