The bar was a fabulous nightmare, the kind where you can't believe that after worrying about it for three straight months, that it could really actually be as bad as you'd thought. Computers crashing left and right; at one point in time, out of the 600 exam-takers, I'd guess 300 were waving their orange 'help-me-my-computer's-fucked" flag. I crashed twice, and I feel lucky. Out of probably twenty people I talked to afterwards, three had crashes so severe that they ended up having to hand-write, another 4-5 had blackouts, crashes, or something else. And then there was the entire row of people who had the electricity surge--sparks, explosions, and the like. 30 people jumping up and running around trying to figure out what was going on. In all, it was pretty bad.
Ok, saying it was a fabulous nightmare is probably over the top, but when you're in the middle of a secured transactions monster, and your screen goes black, and you take a look around you at 500 people typing at 60 words a minute, and realize that every second you're out of commission greatly increases the odds that you'll fail, and you're rebooting and wondering if this is it, three months of studying and you lose because the people at Examsoft can't develop a basic word processing program (even though they get at least $100 from each Colorado bar exam taker they send exactly ONE technical person to help out the hundreds of people with problems), and you're sitting there, black screen in front of you, hoping it'll re-boot, that the Saint Christopher medallion you're wearing for this crazy journey will pay off because boy you need it ... then, exactly then, it's a fabulously horrific nightmare.
And don't get me started on the MBE. The general consensus on jdjive.com and xoxohth.com was at least as hard as the PMBR and Barbri tests; people who took it in Feb. and last July say it was about 10-15 questions harder. The speculation is that the Bar people got angry with Bob Feinberg, PMBR's founder, who was caught stuffing the MBE down his pants in Alaska last July, and who the Bar people are suing since some of the PMBR questions are almost verbatim bar questions. (Also, they added a wonderful "Bob Feinberg disclaimer" on the MBE, where the test-taker states they're only taking the MBE to be admitted, etc. and so forth, and not for stuffing down your pants and re-publishing it and making a bazillion dollars. Anyway, a lot of the questions tested super-obscure things PMBR addressed b y giving us general, default rules, and that if you knew the PMBR rule you'd probably get it wrong. They punished Bob by making sure the people who took his class got screwed on about 10 questions.
So that was that. If I pass, I'll thank ole Chris and my lucky stars and the fact that I studied really hard and knew everything. If I fail ... I don't know. Talk to me in October.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
A Buffs post! I love these!
I agree that the MBE was extra-tough. I had no idea that the man I was listening to on the PMBR tapes had stuffed an exam down his pants. That would have really changed the tone of things for me.
The computer situation was pretty crazy, though I think having an extra battery could have helped a lot of people. Of course, actually having functioning power would have helped a lot of people too. Oh, and it would have been good if they'd realized that not many people would be making back-up copies on disks because -HULLO!- not many of use have disk drives.
Having the head proctor up on a big "stage" was pretty funny. She was on a pretty fabulous power trip. I loved when she asked that people who were using the restrooms leave their exams with "[her] proctors" and not with her because "that's what they're for." Right, 'cause watching a clock count down minutes was really sucking up all of her time.
I feel for you Buffs, Moops and everyone else... But I certainely hope that by next year they have solved the problems and are less concerned with the whole stuffing a test down your pants issue... I feel silly just wriiting that.
i only recall one really bad computer problem and it involved knocking over coffee onto a laptop.
if it makes any of you feel better, i felt like the actual exam was harder than any of the practice exams. there were very few questions (like 5) on the mbe where i actually thought i had a clue. and i passed. so there is hope.
Bwahaha! I know who it was that had the coffee incident, too. Poor guy, but I know for a fact that he passed as well. I remember one of the MBE sections (probably afternoon) was so bad, I practically guessed on everything. Don't feel bad about the MBE. It's still curved.
Post a Comment