I have a similar experience, particularly when I’ve done well I’ve typically had plenty of time to spare. The exams I’ve ended up failing are also the ones where I’m barely finishing, usually because I’m trying to figure out problems that I’m not quite sure how to do.
Unless you were in some far more run down testing center than me, this is disingenuous. It was about as good as you could hope an exam center excel to be. Sure, they don’t have gaming mice but it’s basically just a standard issue dell mouse and keyboard with a basic spreadsheet software that we literally had access to solve prior exam problems in for weeks leading up.
I ran into a wonky formula thing where, if I remember correctly, you could click enter to complete the formula but not tab, or something similar, but I’d remembered that from practicing a couple problems at home in the same software. I think Pearson was a great success.
I’ve also proctored a lot of exams in large rooms. There are definitely times when it looked like the timing was about right. I could see that most candidates were tidying up before time was called. There were other sittings where the exams was obviously too long, and almost everyone was frantically writing right up until the end.
I’d say the typical exam was a little too long, and “obviously much too long” was uncommon, as was, “everyone who had a chance of passing had plenty of time”.
In fact, if either were REALLY bad, I, personally, would have complained during my exam, in the hopes they had a spare they could swap out for me. But i tend to whine about stuff that i think can be improved.
Notes as I glance through the thread so far:
- Equipment issues at test sites. Where this happened, hopefully candidates reported this in feedback to the CAS. I do know of a few candidates who didn’t get the full 4 hours because of computer issues, the system kicking them out, etc. How the CAS is going to handle that is TBD. If you have an issue, report it ASAP.
- Concerns about exam length. This has been noted in exam surveys for years; how it was dealt with, if at all, is unknown. My gut feeling is that in general it wasn’t dealt with - candidates continued to think they needed more than 4 hours to finish - and that allowances were not as common as perhaps they should have been and may have been insufficient at times. (My thoughts only.) This time around, the CAS will have better information on what exactly drove exam length and can tailor questions better and make more explicit adjustments instead of a hand-waving guess.
- Pearson’s spreadsheet capability. Yes, it’s not Excel. That was advertised in front of the exam. Candidates had links to practice in the Pearson environment and understand what would / wouldn’t work. Sometimes, it’s on the candidates to know what to expect and prepare accordingly.
- Candidate feedback when they don’t pass. This is a known issue with the removal of examiner’s reports, especially since they were cited as a primary source for studying. I had long argued to just give candidates their answer sheets back; even for a $50-100 fee, I think many of them would have paid for it. That option was never offered, it certainly won’t happen now and there’s nothing available at any level. I don’t know what the solution is here, but going back to nothing is not acceptable after the CAS spent lots of time and effort pointing candidates to the examiner’s reports and away from 3rd-party materials.
- There’s no reading period now. No, there’s not. Life isn’t fair. That said, even if the CAS wanted to have one it’s not an option in the Pearson testing software. I would expect that, all things being equal (and they are certainly not this time around) candidate grades would decline from past sessions. That will presumably get accounted for in the setting of the pass mark.
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The main theme and argument is that CAS is refusing to communicate with candidates. The is no discussion. We register and then CAS just says, btw, we will make the following change. Time passes, another change, etc. There is no explanation, no discussion and little warning. But you are right, life is not fair. And CAS does not care about a positive communication channel. But if we go this route, why should CAS expect that candidates perceive all of these changes to be made out of love and care for us?
I firmly believe the CAS is quite poor at communicating.
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Can i congratulate you?
I failed. The CAS told me I got a 5. My grade report is not working it is showing blank. So studying for this thing for over 2.5 years and got two 5s.
That sucks. 5 here too. Once you get your report, do you mind sharing if you got credit for cell references vs writing out full formula. I feel i overdocumented and lost time on that.
Ps: when CAS messes up, it’s the server’s fault.
Before I continue, I’ll say that I’m no fan of the way CAS has communicated in the past and think there are still lots of ways that communication could be improved, and that the CAS could be more transparent on a number of things than it currently is.
IMO it’s not that the CAS is refusing to communicate with candidates. It’s more that the CAS is refusing to communicate with candidates in the ways that candidates want. You want refusing to communicate? Go back to pre-2008 when they didn’t communicate. There are candidate complaints that are addressed by simply reading information available on the CAS website - information that’s fairly easily found in a number of cases. That’s not on the CAS to communicate; that’s on candidates to learn how to read. There are other candidate complaints that the CAS is never going to address because it’s not something the candidates should know. Everything that’s left is potential fair game to question, and even some of that I’d say can be ruled out fairly quickly.
If this is in reference to the 2020 exam session, … 2020 is an anomaly. A lot of that was decided on the fly. I can’t and won’t fault the CAS for that.
Moving to CBT? That wasn’t planned to happen for a couple more years, but the inability to reliably do paper exams made pushing that up a necessity. Deciding to take away Examiner’s Reports? Yeah, it could have been announced earlier but if they were moving to CBT it was going to happen eventually; since they were going to CBT, they ripped that sore open to start the way toward a question bank and eventually more frequent exams. However, they didn’t take away prior exams. Those are still available to study from and they’ll be good for a while. [If anyone’s ability to study for the 2020 exams was somehow impacted by the announcement that they were not releasing the 2020 exams, … I hate to be blunt, but suck it up and deal already.] Unveiling the Pearson test environment? They did the best they could; how it works isn’t in their control, and candidates were told “it’s not Excel as you know it, here’s a link, go practice so you’re familiar with it.”
Are there questions around what to expect going forward? Yes. Are those answers being worked on? Yes. Beyond that? I’m curious what all these changes are that the CAS is making that are “sprung” on candidates which is causing pain right now.
They’re not made out of love and care for us. Nor should they be. They’re for what the CAS deems as the most appropriate methods to test candidates on material and award credentials to sufficiently qualified candidates. Whether or not they’re doing that correctly is a different discussion, but that’s also not up to candidates to decide. Can candidates express an opinion? Sure, and there are avenues for that. Do they get to decide how the show is run? 
.
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if they didn’t give credit for just cell references there’s no way I would have passed 7, imo
I don’t know which exam you took but I took 5, passed with a 7 and didn’t document any of my formulas. The CAS has always said that they will use cell formulas as documentation for credit. HOWEVER, that being said if you do have time it’s not a bad idea to write out the formula/etc used in case you happened to make a mistake in the cell, you can still get partial credit.
My advice would be to do bare minimum documentation for time saving and then sweep through/clean things up as you review at the end.
Are we allowed/recommended to type our solutions to the right hand side of the questions on the spreadsheet even though the instructions specifically say “Show all work below”?
Yes
just make sure your work is someplace the grader will see it. Pretend you are handing that spreadsheet to your boss, or a coworker, or an employee, and you want them to be able to find your work and follow it.
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