Hello everyone, this is Refried. Today is Tuesday, Dec 17. I am recovering from an unexpected incident that traumatized me on mild levels personally but was actually pretty extreme psychologically. As I mentioned in my other blog post, I tried to take the GRE at-home-test Sunday. I kept changing my mind about whether to try my best on the whole test or just do well on the verbal section and either skip or tank the other sections. Just a day before taking the test, I realized that on my practice test, the computer punished my verbal score if I tanked the math test. Well that meant I needed to do well on the whole thing.
It came time to take the test, and the proctor was late to the agreed time for the session. Then he talked too quietly and was not helpful as we set up the online system. I think he was doing it on purpose, and there were three things that made no sense whatsoever and had to have been an attempt to drain my patience.
When it came time to scan my apartment so he could see my testing station was right, I could not easily place the computer within visibility of the door. To plug it in, it had to be the way I usually use it on zoom. This is when I decided to give up and cancel so my scores were not affected by a bad experience. Obviously there are multiple factors, and my computer was heating up, too.
But it wasn’t a normal choice to forfeit the cost of the test. The experience with the proctor was so violating that I immediately started contacting the test company to complain. I also unexpectedly asked for a refund. The process of communication was blocked by bots and barriers to a normal customer service process.
The bad feeling has lasted for days, and this morning I sent a letter about it to some seminary friends. It did help me feel better and I felt God’s love because I owed those pals a Christmas email and now I had some good content.
So that is weird, and today I got the email from ETS saying my “scores were not reported” because my computer didn’t have visibility to the door.
I think that tomorrow I will hear back from one of the people I complained to. I think I will be calm and accept losing the money. I think that it might end up being two separate issues: the bad proctor, and not being able to take the test.
Except I am not sure it was two separate issues. I think if I had a good proctor I would have been able to find a solution about the laptop.
Yesterday I almost filed a complaint with better business bureau, and at night I even wondered if I should report it to police, based on the deliberate nature of the incident. But today I think I am opting out of an ongoing legal battle. I think that my complaints and their choices of what to do will just be what they are, and their problem is more than apparent and documented.
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