Barmageddon

At the end of July, I sat for the Ohio bar exam. This was my second bar exam, having taken West Virginia the summer before, so I had some idea of what to expect, but was still nervous. I experienced the same worries I had the previous summer. What if I didn’t study enough? What if I didn’t study this particular subject enough? What if I forget my photo identification? What if my alarm doesn’t go off in the morning? What if I get sick during the test? What IS a commercial transaction? Will I ever know?? One thing I did not think to worry about, however, was what if the testing software fails to work?

There are two options for taking the bar exam. One is to write your essay answers longhand, in a lined-paper booklet provided to you by the proctors. With this option, you are limited by a number of pages for your responses. Most essays questions do not permit the examinee to use more than two handwritten pages. Additionally, the examinee is required to use pen. This makes it difficult to edit the response, particularly considering the strict time constraints for each question. As a result of these added difficulties, and considering that most law students today have been educated largely through typing and computers, handwriting is the less favored method for bar examinees. The other option, and the one utilized by the vast majority of bar exam takers, is to download computer software and type written responses into the program. The program is specially designed for exams such as the bar. Once opened on the examinee’s computer, the software will shut off access to all other programs, to prevent applicants from cheating by using the Internet or their electronic notes and outlines while answering the exam questions. The software also keeps time on the question, preventing applicants from using extra minutes, or even seconds, to get one last word into their responses. Most importantly, the software saves what is being typed once every minute, automatically, so the examinee can use full focus on their responses. At the end of the day, the software will automatically upload the responses to a server once the computer is connected to wireless Internet, and the server will submit the responses directly to those responsible for grading the exams. Examinees cannot review or access their responses again, so there is no risk of cheating through hindsight editing. All in all, it is a pretty easy and convenient system. It is so easy and convenient, in fact, that most examinees don’t give a second thought to it. After all, there is enough to worry about with remembering the elements of negligence or determining who is the rightful owner of a piece of property.

After finishing up the first day of the Ohio testing, I returned to my hotel room to relax for a bit. Before doing anything else, I wanted to make sure I uploaded my exam responses. The exam proctor had been extremely clear at the end of the exam that if we failed to make the upload by the 10:00 p.m. deadline, there was NOTHING that could be done to remedy that error. I opened my laptop, expecting to see the green upload screen confirming that my essays were safe and sound in the inboxes of some lucky grader. This time, however, all I saw were sad little scrolling wheels, trying to upload the essays. My inbox filled with emails titled “EXAM UPLOAD FAILURE.” I was alarmed, but chalked this up to the wireless being weak in my room, and went down to the hotel lobby to get a better signal.

When I arrived down in the lobby, I encountered about 50 of my fellow test-takers who were staying in the same hotel as me. Everyone was having the same problem. None of the exams would upload. Even worse, no one could figure out why, or what to do. People were venturing out to nearby coffee shops with laptops in tow, figuring the wireless at the hotel was just overloaded with users, only to return an hour or two later, defeated. Others were calling the Ohio Supreme Court, the bar admissions office, and the software company, looking for answers, only to get the after-hours messages. Law students, as a general group, are not exactly known for being the most relaxed of people, and the bar exam is an event that can send even the most laidback into orbit. This problem with the software was not helping. People were getting angry at their friends, the hotel employees, and anyone in their path. People were emotional, worried that this software SNAFU would affect their bar passage, their employment, their futures. Some people joked that they were rethinking their judgment of those who had taken the test by hand, saying that it seemed like a pretty good option now. People on Twitter and Facebook were calling it “Barmageddon.”

Eventually, I realized that this situation was beyond my control, and that it was more important to refocus on the next day of testing and to get a good night’s sleep. The uncertainty of the situation, and what would happen with the exam responses, was still a little troubling, but I decided to just hope for the best. Sure enough, when I woke up the next morning and opened my laptop, the green screen popped up to congratulate me on a successful upload of all of my exams. At the start of that day of testing, the exam proctor apologized for the problems, and reassured us that we would never be penalized for something beyond our control, such as a software failure. The rest of the exam went on without incident. And while this situation may have made an already stressful experience all the more stressful, it was a good reminder that worrying and reacting negatively to a situation beyond your control usually won’t help anything, and that things tend to work out if you have a little faith that they will. I could easily add worrying about computer failure to my list of concerns for the next bar exam I will take, but I think I will just stick to the ones that I have the ability to control. Like finally figuring out what a commercial transaction is.

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