Your use of Pearson Vue will mostly likely occur once in your life, if you ever have need of its services in the first place. Plus, it is not even up to you whether or not you will use their services if you need them. That is chosen by whatever examination/licensing corporation that acts as the gatekeeper between you as amateur and you as living out your chosen profession.
It is, in short, a testing center. It offers computer-based examinations, and moreso offers the myriad of security checks and anti-cheating procedures that examination/licensing boards hope to utilize. My particular vocational field just started using Pearson Vue for their testing services, and I, stupidly enough, decided I might as well get it over with and be a guinea pig. I should clarify that it is not the Pearson Vue center itself that bothers me, but the material they decided to test us on... but that is an altogether different subject.
The building it's in, 100 William Street, was itself not hard to find, but the entrance was, especially for one like me who is entirely unfamiliar with anything below 14th Street, let alone any neighborhoods that use names rather than numbers to designate their streets. Sure 100 William Street was on the corner of William and John, but the entrance was BEHIND the huge portion of the building that housed a Starbucks and a bank, or was that some flower shop? Not sure, but annoying nonetheless. At least the lobby was kind enough to post a large sign saying "Pearson - 12th Floor" and one merely signed in at the log, and headed up in the elevator to the 12th floor. And on the 12th floor, the door to Pearson is the first thing you see. Easy peasy.
Once through those doors, the people behind the desk immediately see you and call out to you amidst your confusion, "JUST TAKE A NUMBER AND COME THIS WAY." Before you stands a podium with a stack of plastic circles bearing a single number on it, and you take one, and go to the desk. You tell them what test you're taking, they give you a sheet of rules and instruct you to read them, then put all your personal belonging in a locker (including your wrist watch and anything in your pockets), take the key with you, as well as your ID, and come back to the desk where they take away the sheet of rules, check your two IDs against their records, and take your picture and finger print. Then you wait again, and someone escorts you to the back testing rooms, and passes you on to the GaterKeepers of the testing rooms, where you are once again finger printed and checked against the picture of you they just took, and proceed to lectured you on the rules of the examination procedures before bringing you into the testing room. The deathly quiet testing room. They reaffirm that you WILL BE VIDEOTAPED AND RECORDED during your exam. You have a seat, the GateKeeper logs onto the computer for you, and you begin.
A grueling and frustrating time later, after the computer has determined you passed or failed and has shut itself off, you wave your hand in the air. Then you wave your white plastic write-on board in the air. Finally you turn around to see the GateKeeper sitting there with his/her head down, and you start to get up before the GateKeeper looks up and motions you out. You're fingerprinted - AGAIN - and directed out to collect your coat, bag, and test results report.
What I liked about the Pearson Vue center was that it was clean. Like, really clean, almost as if it's brand new. And there was a creepy quiet than hung over everything, almost like a library but worse because other than in the testing rooms, no one was really concentrating on anything. People just obeyed the silence like lambs to the slaughter. And the staff was nice, very nice, and spoke to you slowly and articulately as if you were 5 years old or mentally challenged. Or about to take a test that could change the course of your life.
One note on CATs, or computer-adaptive tests - they suck. They just SUCK. I don't care that in the end, I knew walking out of the test that I passed. It was a Pyrrhic victory - the damage it did to my self confidence in asking such ridiculously hard and irrelevant questions and causing me to shake my head mouthing "what the f**k?" at 90% of the questions. I'm still stinging from it. (whimper)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
@Pearson Vue
They took over the insurance licensing renewals in 2012 and it is impossible to get through to them to follow up on their errors. Pearson, you suck! If you can't do the job properly, let someone else do it. What a nightmare. They don't answer their mail or answer their phones. I've now gotten through on my 11th time over five weeks and I've held for 29 minutes, so far.
Post a Comment