Online GMAT Issues

I faced exactly the same issue, I restarted my laptop and the exam finally appeared as pending.
I called the support service every day for 3-4 days and finally got the exam reschedule for the next week.
As BB says, it may be that they tell you to wait for another 16d, you should insist that you have to take it asap.
Also, tell them to reset the count of your online exams, as you know you can only take them twice -- in my case, after the first attempt, I couldn't program the second attempt since the system was also counting the pending one.

Regards

Juan

Hi all,

I sat for my exam today and had technical issues during the quant portion of the exam. I was about 3 questions through the exam when a DS question appears on my screen without showing the two fact patterns that need to be used to answer the question. I noticed this about 10 seconds into the question, notified my proctor, and had to sit through five minutes of lost time. Eventually, my proctor was able to figure out that my exam could be paused. However, I lost a solid 5 minutes to do my proctors inability to pause the test immediately. Then, a few minutes later, the same instance occurred where i was unable to see the whole question. I lost another 30-45 seconds in this instance.

To sum, I lost about 6 minutes during the Quant section due to technical issues. While I technically "finished the section on time", I was forced to skip certain questions and modify my overall test strategy due to the delay. The average Quant strategy tells a tester to take about 2 minutes per question (or 8 minutes for sets of 4 questions), so clearly the loss of 6 minutes is a big deal and not a fair trial.

I emailed GMAT after my test and hoping to have the issue resolved, but definitely wanted to show my experience through the forum. The rest of the experience was great.

Took my exam online on 5/31 and had very odd issues.

1. The system was very laggy once the test began. There were instances where I could not select the radio buttons or had to click 10+ times on a button for it to work. The screen would freeze during this for up to 30 seconds at a time.

2. During the first question of the quant section, my screen flashed and switched to the screen with the break, after clicking next it switched to integrated reasoning, skipping quant. Somehow after maybe 30 sec it went back to the quant section to my question, but my timer was reduced. The same glitch happened during the integrated reasoning section - it switched over to AWA but eventually returned back.

3. Additionally, due to the delayed response of the system I would get 4-5 pop ups of the “are you sure you have finished selecting the answer”. During each pop up, the screen would freeze, not allowing me to continue working on the problems for a significant amount of time.

Already emailed gmac, no answer yet.
I think most annoyingly though, my proctor would keep talking with instructions after my section would start.

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I emailed them at customercare@mba.com

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Just this one time. My earlier attempt was in Feb, the previous online system. (Was pretty smooth for me)

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Update - just received a response from GMAC with a voucher code for a retake. Yay!

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Congratulations. That took two weeks. That’s quite a bit longer than I would’ve expected. Sorry it took that long. And thanks so much for reporting back.

I have updated the status with the feedback provided by GMAC in yesterday's videocall, please comment if I have missed anything!

Hi, reddy10d sorry to hear from your bad experience.

So the suggestion would be that if anything does not work well before starting it make sure it all runs smooth or you may lose exam time later.

Regarding the whiteboard, was my impression that you could prepare it before starting the first question, no? The advice I would give is to set letter size and type, change the background of the figures to transparent, and set the lines to honest width.

Regards,
Pablo

Hi pabpinor

Yes, I would definitely advice opening the whiteboard during the time we have for reviewing the instructions.
I don't remember what was going in my head, but I tried opening the whiteboard some 5 seconds before the start of the test.
I did try to set the letter size and change the figures to transparent, but the system response was already very lagged.

Its recommended to test the system response before the start of the test, and alert the proctor if we find any issues. That way, at least we will have the opportunity to reboot the computer and start the test without losing any exam time.

Anyway, I'd rather hope that GMAC fixes these issues soon as encountering any issue right in the beginning can shake off all the calm and can potentially affect the overall performance.

Yes, from my experience they response time of 2 days is not true even in regular times, so now that they are overwhelmed it will be definitely much more.

Keep trying and cross your fingers.

Regards,
Pablo

Just took my online GMAT this morning, I did not manage to get past the second quant question before they had to shut the exam and get their tech team to come back to me at a later stage. At the exam instructions page, the software froze on my mac and I asked the proctor to call me and he did. He asked me to reboot, and I was able to get back in.

After the first quant question, I decided to move the exam software icon near the top of the screen further up a bit as it was close to the question text. My screen then went blank with an error message "your file could not be found". My proctor then advised me through the chat box that we best cancel to prevent me losing time. I explained to him that I need this score for my application on Monday, but he proceeded anyway. Apparently their tech team will get back to me in a few days.

This is frustrating as I have completed the system checks prior to the exam and it was all fine. I have already had my interview with my target school, and the GMAT score is the only thing pending on my application before they issue final decisions by the end of the month. Due to the technical issues, I am at risk of losing my chance. I really want to sit the GMAT as I have been preparing for the past few months and have achieved close to my target score. I have contacted my target school and we will see what happens...

Hi kaiyuan28935749,

Sorry to hear that you had to face this kind of technical difficulty when you needed the GMAT score soon.
Your experience sounds similar to what I had faced 2 weeks ago.

I am not aware of the progress GMAC and Pearson are doing in resolving the issues, but so far their response regarding the retest has been very slow.
I had my appointment on 5th May when it went wrong, and its been 2 weeks and I still haven't received any mail regarding the retest.

Hope that the schools you applied to make some exceptions and give you some extra time to submit the score.

Hi cmcmurrin

A quick question. While rescheduling, did you pay the exam fees separately and received the refund for your initial appointment?
I called the customer care today and the representative told me that the authorization code is reset and I can schedule my next appointment now.

Hey reddy10d thanks for sharing! Best of luck with your result.

I hope that GMAC solves those issues.
I would add that another disturbance I had was the Pearson bar on top, for the verbal part in few questions it was over some text so I moved it to the right and up.

Regards,
Pablo

Hope you could perform well in the exam.

I had a similar encounter when my system froze during the first 5 minutes of the test. I received a phone call from the proctor and she asked me to note down the 9 digit code, restart my Mac and come back to the test again.
Although the system was working fine after restarting, I thought it would be best to retake the test rather than resuming with almost 15 mins lost to the technical issue.
The proctor was reasonable enough and told me that since I had already seen a couple of questions, she can only file a case for the technical issue and that I can retake the test at a later date.
(It took about 20 days before I received a word that I can now book an appointment for my retest)

From my experience, although some technical glitches cause the entire test to be cancelled, but such issues as system freeze where you lose a considerable amount of time, we must tell the proctor and request for a retest if you feel that all this unnecessary pressure and the lost time could impact your performance. They may try to convince you to continue with the test if you are feeling alright, but its important to be rational in such circumstances, and insist that the technical issue will have a serious impact.
Of course, if you are feeling alright and don't mind continuing even after losing 10-15mins, then continue with the test.

Oh my word!!!! Wow. Awesome!!!!!! Congrats!!!



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