Thursday, August 30, 2007

New York Bar Examiners Still Can't Find Complete Essay Answers

A month after taking the New York bar exam, many students still stand in limbo after the New York State Bar Examiners informed some that their essay submissions are incomplete. The missing essays for the July 2007 had been written on laptop computers.

According to New York Lawyer, "the board hired to provide software to take the bar exam, appear to have incomplete essays from about 400 people who sat for July's exam." (see: Son of a Glitch!: Hundreds of NY Bar Exam Takers May Have Had Essay Answers Fouled Up by Software, free reg.)

Test takers have been emailed and asked to send back-up data that they may have from the test.

I had previously recounted my own experience in taking the exam in 1985, when the results of 500+ people taking the test in the passenger ship terminals on Manhattan's west side disappeared. The vast majority had to retake the missing section.

And so, it appears that a high-tech replay of that infamous incident may now be in full swing.

Addendum:

• NYS Bar Examiners Do Grade Approximation For Missing Exam Answers (11/15/07)
• How, Exactly, did New York Grade That Bar Exam? (11/26/07)
  

Labels: Bar Exam, Odds and Ends

posted by Eric Turkewitz  # Permanent Link

Comments:

There was a similar snafu during the February 2006 administration of the Washington bar. It was the first year that they were allowing laptops, and there had been some back-and-forth about how long essays would be allowed to be. Apparently, after the final decision, no one correctly updated the ExamSoft server, so test-takers started being told that they had run out of space about 30% sooner than they expected. The proctors were utterly unable to cope on the spot, issuing conflicting instructions (including telling everyone to write the rest of their answer by hand on scrap paper - as if they would ever be able to correctly match them up). Administration of the exam was substantially delayed for the laptop users, and they had to skip their lunch break (I talked to a diabetic who was livid over that part). At the end of the exam, everyone had to stay in their seats while someone with a USB flash drive downloaded their test files one by one.

Meanwhile, because I have a Mac and couldn't lay hands on a Windows laptop, I took the exam upstairs in the typewriter room. There were four test takers and five proctors. It went as smoothly as I could possibly have asked.

# posted by  Elizabeth : August 30, 2007 7:28 PM

 

It always goes smoother with a Mac
:)

# posted by  Eric Turkewitz : August 30, 2007 8:41 PM

 

Just to clarify, I didn't get to use the Mac for the exam - I had a typewriter. Do you know how hard it is to find a typewriter that can switch to Dvorak keyboard but doesn't have a memory? I was very lucky to find one on ebay.

# posted by  Elizabeth : August 31, 2007 2:20 PM

 

What happened to old fashioned pen and paper?

# posted by  Eric Turkewitz : August 31, 2007 2:26 PM

 

I could have used old fashioned pen and paper, and I would have if I hadn't been able to find a typewriter. But now that I'm a parent and working full-time, I didn't really have time to handwrite for an hour or two every day to get my hands in shape for the bar like I did when I sat it in Massachusetts - but I type all day long anyway. (The Washington state bar is two and a half days of nothing but essays - they don't use the Multistate. Even with practice, my hands were a wreck for a couple of days after the Massachusetts bar, and that was just one day of essay writing.)

# posted by  Elizabeth : August 31, 2007 6:14 PM

 

I did a bunch of practice essays over the weekend and let me tell you - in just 1 hour my hand was in agony. I don't think people in my generation realize the unforseen consequence of keyboarding more and handwriting dramatically less everyday. It was pitiful.

The Guardian UK had a great article on this...

Nice blog, Eric!

# posted by  David : September 09, 2008 2:34 PM

 

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