Standard Written Exam

In order to become licensed for social work, there are two exams (or 2-part exam?) I have to take, and pass! Today was the 1st exam. I've been dragging this thing since last fall. I somewhat messed up on the application process and I wasn't even eligible till November. Then I realized I really should have started studying before the application process was done but I didn't. Doh. Then I kept waiting to be able to schedule the exam on the web only to find out that I could have scheduled it over the phone weeks ago. Doh again.

I finally got tired of studying and waiting for THE DAY so I decided to take it before I leave town for BCA. A lot of people I've talked to have told me that I just need to study a couple of hours a day for a few months. Trying to do any more than that would be too hard, and in their opinion, unnecessary. Another tip they gave me was to just keep going over the practice exams. So I did.

I don't know if there are different times available for the exam, but my idiot brain told me to schedule it first thing in the morning...9AM in Carson. So I set my alarm clock for 6 AM.

These things never go smoothly.

Right when I turn my light off to go to sleep, my roommate brings in his friend who is having some kind of a crisis. She is making all kinds of noise and talking some gibberish. This lasted for an hour or so. I probably didn't go to sleep till midnight, although I probably couldn't have fallen asleep anyway.

The instructions says for candidates to arrive at the test center 30 minutes before the starting time. Somehow I get there before 8 AM. I sit in my car and read for a bit till it's time for me to go in.

They don't allow for candidates to bring in any personal items, so I just brought an ID and my car keys with me. They gave me an envelope to put my personal belongings (made me take off my watch) and hang up my jacket. Then they asked me to sign a form and took a picture and thumb print.

The lady takes me into the exam room. It's just a room with a bunch of cubicles and computers. I had one of the cubicles against the wall, so I might have had less distraction to deal with than other people. I didn't bother putting on the ear plugs they provided so I could hear the cars outside and people coming in and out of the room.

After going through the instructions on the computer, I started the exam.

This exam is a total of 200 questions to be done within 4 hours. It's a multiple choice format with 4 answer choices. All of the choices could be true but only the best answer is the correct answer.

The exam was very similar to the practice exam I've been using. The thing that threw me off was the clock. My practice exam shows the time as "4:00:00" whereas the actual test showed "Time left: 240 min."

Since I've been making many careless mistakes on the practice exams by rushing through the questions, I decided to take time in reading the questions and answers more thoroughly. I thought I was being careful about checking the time, but I realized that there were only 180 minutes left when I got to question 35. Yikes!!!

240 minutes for 200 question means that there are 1 minute 12 seconds per question. Not all questions need that much time, but some questions need a lot more time.

So now this meant that I had less than a minute per question.

I'm trying to do the best I can to concentrate and go through the questions quickly. Remember the picture they took of me before the exam? That picture is on the right hand side of the screen the whole time I'm taking the exam. Yes, I know what I look like, but hmm maybe I should have fixed my hair etc. etc. etc. It was very distracting.

When I had 1 hour left, I had about 60 questions. I caught up, but still in deep, deep trouble. By this time, I really wanted to go to the bathroom (I went before the exam of course) but I couldn't spare the time. I don't think they stop the clock for bathroom breaks. I was answering most of the questions by instinct at this time.

By the time I finished the 200th question, I had a minute left. I had enough time to go back to the previous question to double-check it.

The scary thing about computerized testing is finding out the result right away. I anxiously press the "next" button and the computer asks me a bunch of times if I really want to end the exam. JUST GIVE ME THE RESULT ALREADY.

Then the computer asks me a 8-question survey about the test center location, room, etc. WHERE IS THE RESULT!?

After answering the 8 annoying questions, I finally see "pass."

Whew, what a relief.