Apparently they had some kind of error this morning and couldn’t start any exam. After waiting on the phone with Pearson for 30 minutes
I emailed CAS with the details. I am really hoping that accommodations of some kind can be made in this situation, especially since no one affected would have seen any questions. (No I am not the person on Reddit who was issuing concerns about the exam crashing on Tuesday).
I will be severely disappointed if CAS comes back and says here is your refund, rewrite in a year, especially given the syllabus changes coming into effect next year.
Won’t jump to any conclusions yet but am wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation and what the outcome was
I will be stunned if they cannot accommodate you in some reasonable way.
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Hope this helps.
When I was writing exam 9 on the last permitted date, the internet went off at the Pearson Vue Center and never came back during my 1st hour.
I contacted CAS website as soon as I could and CAS came back and gave authorization to test few days after the incidence.
CAS will give you re-authorization to test with Pearson Vue and you should be able to re-take the exam. The to be re-taken exam would be a brand new, totally from the scratch exam.
You are in good hands. I understand how stressful it could be, but having been through this experience before, I was able to re-write the exam.
Good luck!
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A somewhat related post from Reddit (ignore the provocative title and conclusion of the post; the body of the post is relevant.):
https://www.reddit.com/r/actuary/comments/139957g/a_warning_to_cas_exam_takers_you_are_not/
The lagging issue, and my exam freezing, was due to Pearson’s bandwidth problems.
What the ever loving eff. Bandwidth issues? In 2023.
Everything ive read tells me that the soa and cas need to be accountable for using pearson. Its one screwup after another and its ongoing. This is a huge disservice the societies are doingto their students
Studying for six months and then not being able to write because (checks notes) ‘bandwidth issues’. I can feel my blood.pressure rise just imagining this.
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I hear Prometric (used for SOA exams state side) is not much better.
Thanks that does help. I am hoping because I didn’t see any questions at all that this would increase the chances of this but I guess if CAS has a backup then things should be ok.
If i do have to rewrite next year I would prefer it be because of bad exam answers 
CAS should be having staff on standby during the testing window with a solution ready to go when candidates call in
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Good luck, and keep us posted. They should make this right for you.
I am curious about this scenario. Does the CAS have a stand-by extra exam available every sitting in case of problems like this, or was one put together quickly?
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I’m not sure if the CAS really employs enough staff to be able to have someone on call?
Then they can work with Pearson to have a solution ready to go when shit hits the fan
My best guess, given that my first exam failed and had to take the late make up exam, is that they will have “Pool” of questions per year.
I hope that I am not violating any NDA stuff (please let me know so I can delete), but I remember that the first set of questions (probably somewhere from Q1 to Q4 which I had attempted for the first 30min ~ 1hr) was not there in the second set which I took few days after. I did not see any questions from the first set when I took the second set.
I would also have appreciated if somebody was on the call, but my main communication was e-mail and CAS staff did everything they can to support me and I was able to feel that support and help.
For the main writer, if you get the re-authorization to take the test, try to take the exam from other Pearson Vue center, other than where you took.
When I re-registered exam, I called Pearson Vue center (same test center of blackout + internet issue) and they were still out of the internet service. I had to call on the day of second re-take day to re-register in other Pearson center on the next day + notify CAS. Remember that you can only re-schedule 48 hrs prior to your exam hour.
From my personal experience, I can tell you if something goes wrong, it will go wrong in an epic way that nobody, who did not have gone through, would account for on their what-if scenarios.
All these being said, CAS was able to get in touch with me + Pearson Vue center and with little of “my” calls to Pearson Vue center, I was able to re-take the exam.
Such a shame that I failed with 5 last year.
What I can tell you is sorry this happen to you, but you will be definitely able to take the exam in this sitting and don’t let this throw off your hard-worked exam 9. You will be able to ace!
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More Pearson woes reported on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/actuary/comments/13bx2o7/turned_away_after_starting_masii_for_technical/
Thank you everyone for the kind words. The response I got back from the CAS office was that they would contact Pearson and would reschedule a sitting. They were able to do so yesterday and my only choice was today (but that really wasn’t an issue for me) and I am glad to be done. I followed the advice above and used a different test Center which seemed to have more modern computers than others I have used. Regarding Pearson in general, the list of complaints about them amongst many different test writers across professions appears to be long so I guess we aren’t the only ones with challenges.
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