GMAT Online - What We Know [Master Topic]

That is a crazy leap of faith to take. The touch screen option was already there and I would bet it was an oversight on their end

Thank you so much for posting! Found the post and addicting it to your post.

LOL. They have been all over this touchscreen issue. Someone also has a copy of the message where they say that you can use touchscreen for whiteboard....


Another issue that seems to be up in the air is wired or wireless mice/keyboards. There are several conflicting messages about them as well.

Posted from my mobile device

hi, is there a full and final update about touchscreens? The last someone on the thread mentioned touchscreens are allowed by not a stylus. You can use your fingers but?

I've been trying to take the online test for over an hour now, and I keep getting a variety of error messages from Pearson Vue...grrr.

First I had problems with getting the workplace photos to work--even though I thought I had already taken care of that issue last night, it turns out that you have to do it all over again when the test begins. I tried over and over, and they were finally approved on the 3rd (or maybe 4th?) try. All I know is, Pearson Vue now has a ton of photos of me, my license and my daughter's room. : / I logged onto the test briefly, answered a single question confirming my identity, had some connection issues that got resolved, then, just as the test was about to begin, I was logged off by the proctor without any notice and locked out of the exam.

Before that, there was a chat option available, but when I clicked on it, it just said something vague like "Thank you. A proctor will respond when available." I did get a chance to try out the online whiteboard and text editor, which was cool, but all I saw was a spinning circle while the test waited to load. I never even saw a single Quant question before the proctor closed the window and effectively ended the exam.

Now I am no longer able to start / restart my GMAT Online exam from my mba.com account page, even though it indicates that the exam is "in progress":













I tried over and over for this byzantine process to work, but it never quite did, even though I got very close. Just a bunch of mystery error messages, frozen loading screens, etc. I never even heard a proctor's voice on the other side. Neither did I receive a single chat message or phone call regarding any of my tech issues, even though the program said that the proctors would contact us by phone with any concerns. Disappointing to say the least.

Also kind of weird that right before the exam is supposed to begin, they put you on camera and say "you must now obey all exam rules," but at the same time they tell you to check your phone for messages from the proctor. How am I supposed to check my phone and follow the test rules at the same time?

What a joke! Oh well. That's what I get for being an early adopter, I guess. I'l probably try again in a couple of weeks.

Overall, this experience was highly discouraging and made my 6-hour long At-Home GRE on 4/5/20 seem fun by comparison. I would not recommend taking the GMAT Online just yet--there are currently too many bugs in the technology.

-Brian

p.s. I just explained to my wife everything that happened, and how the proctor logged me off just as the test was about to begin. She said, "maybe they saw that it was Brian McElroy and got scared."

I picked the right gal, fellas.

Update, 12:51 am PST:

The saga continues...



This gets more ridiculous by the hour. I was on camera waiting for the exam to start about 3 different times for probably 45 minutes total, so of course I looked off camera...to check my phone to see whether my proctors were calling me or sending me any messages about what was happening, as Pearson Vue had alerted me to do (see pics above). They weren't.

So your GMAT Online exam can really be cancelled if you simply look away from the screen, even before the test begins? Ugh. Give me the test center GMAT back.

By the way, the email from Pearson Vue above was of the "**PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL**" variety. Get ready for the red tape...

Hi everyone,

I took the online exam the first day it was available. This was because, either a) I take my chance at the online GMAT, get a decent score (I hope), and meet the deadline. OR b) wait until next year with the flood of people.

I took my chances. I am not an instructor. I work full-time in a high-stress corp job, I don't consider myself smart.
So I studied on and off since January (around 3.5 months?), and I used scrap paper for my studies of course. (Scored around 680-730 for the OG practice exams, not sure how good of an indicator they are as I have never taken the exam before previous to this).
I practiced with the online whiteboard maybe for the 5 days prior to my exam day - but I had partially given up at this point.

Morning of the exam, I ran the test for my system, and was good to go.
I was able to launch the exam 30 mins before my start time to take pictures and send them to the proctor.
It was easy enough. My exam started shortly after.

Quant was a nightmare. The questions honestly weren't that hard but, with the online whiteboard, I would type some numbers out and forget what they meant.
Mind you - this is a high stress/pressure environment so I am already freaking out as is.
I wasted a whole chunk of time typing things out. It was a nightmare.
Ended up guessing a few because I ran out of time.

Verbal - The questions were A LOT harder than the practice exams. (I was getting 36-40 for verbal in all my CATS).
I genuinely think I got below 30. The RC component was especially hard.
Also, getting no break after quant and going straight into verbal take a toll, more than you would think.

During this 5 min break, I wanted to go to the washroom.
Flagged the proctor down, no reply.
She chatted me AFTER my break, during my IR session and when I said never mind, she would KEEP MESSAGING ME!
And then, not sure if it was a glitch, but the chat box would open up randomly throughout and disturb my calculation process!

All in all, I cried after the exam. It was a horrible experience.
I was mad that I had prepared hard, giving up the little free time I had after work.

Worst of all, now I am haunted by what my score will be every night because the score will apparently be emailed to me in 7 business days, not shown right away like at the centers. I would not wish this anxiety to anyone.

In conclusion, write it if you have to (e.g. to meet a deadline).
Or, write it as a score you will write off, practice exam (you can say) until the test centers open.
Other than those two, I would not recommend writing it. I would not wish this experience to anyone.

Sorry to go on about this but I don't find any evidence that bluetooth connected keyboards or mouses would not be allowed on the FAQs. The system test is not flagging anything regarding bluetooth either. Could someone that has done the online test confirm? I am doing it tomorrow at 9am so will have an answer after then but will be in some trouble as my mousepad on the laptop is barely working and I only have access to a bluetooth mouse and not a wired one

Also i just want to update regarding use of touchscreen laptops. There were prior comments that say we can use our finger to write on the touchscreen but it is clearly mentioned in the FAQ section of the GMAT Online exam in GMAC site that we should not use any aid to use the touchscreen.

GMAC just released their online whiteboard practice tool:

https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-online/p ... b7c9d506b6

You and I had a very similar experience. The quant was very tough without a note pad. I have taken 5 OG practice exams (test like conditions, no cheating) and scored 760, 760 , 770, 760, 730. I can not agree with you more that the verbal section on this exam felt harder than every single one of those practice exams. For some of the RC I really felt like none of the answers were correct.

I will echo what you said: Take this only if you are willing to treat this as a practice exam. You might do great on test day, you never know. But do not treat this as your official test. The months of studying will pay off when test centers open.

Hey guys,
I think it was mentioned before that if we don't cancel the online GMAT score it will be on the record if we report future gmat scores to the schools.
This questions was asked two nights ago from one of the Veritas instructors in the webinar. She clearly mentioned that GMAT online and regular GMAT are two separate entities and GMAT online score will NOT be reported to the school along with other scores.
Is this still a debate or is cleared out by GMAC?
bb do you have any comment on this? Thanks.

I'm thinking to take an online GMAT as a practice test and based on what I've read I guess my score will be lower than usual. However, if I know it's not gonna be reported I'd like to give it a shot.

That's a very good question. This is one area that I have missed on the webinar and did not quite catch and waited for the recording to be released so that I could listen to it again. It's been released on Monday and I just re-watched that presentation.

There was a question asked by the webinar Moderator: Will there be a notation in the student's records if they took the Online test.
Answer by the GMAC presenter - 2 part answer:
Part 1: Initially, students will get an email with the score. Eventually, they will get them via the mba.com (no timeline for this)
Part 2: If one has tested online and subsequently or previously tested at a test center, this score (GMAT Online score) will not be reflected in those test scores that are sent. These scores, at least for now, will live independently, as a specific GMAT online score.

It seems to me that indeed the GMAT online score will not be sent with other scores (and likely vice versa). My interpretation of "at least for now" is that that's the direction they have and that way it will remain unless GMAC changes the policy.... which is helpful if scores go way down... and while many schools say they only take the highest score and they ignore others, this does make a VERY SAFE way to take this thing and there is even less downside it seems if you bomb it... Thanks for reminding it to look it up!

I am also uploading an audio file so that you can draw your own conclusions.



Thanks,
BB

Super useful, thanks. So I guess beside the $200 fee there is nothing to lose even if someones totally messes up.

Well, here is another huge sloppiness about the online GMAT:

There is this requirement of not logging in from China, Iran, Sudan, and a few other countries due to "LOCAL data privacy issues", so I managed to travel to Armenia (a neighboring country) by land yesterday and logged in from there, and it still says I am ineligible!!

As it turns out, the problem is not the "LOCAL privacy issues" at all, in contrast to what is stated on the website! As long as you identify your citizenship as Iranian(which was my case, and I am sure this happens to Chinese or other restricted countries' people) even if you are living right next door to the GMAC office, you are still ineligible. It's silly how they cannot manage to solve even the simplest issues. I wrote an email and this is the best "Just copy-and-paste" answer I got in my whole life they restate completely irrelevant facts!

How many people are switching to the GRE now that you've read these horror stories about the whiteboard and testing experience?