Bar Exam Disasters, And It's Only Been One Day

Why is it so hard to administer the bar exam? Here are tales of woe from around the country.

A slew of bar exams started yesterday, and the rest got underway today. And yet we already have stories about “crazy things” happening during the administration of the tests.

When things go wrong during the bar exam, most people will overcome the adversity and still pass the test. But those who end up failing the bar will remember these events forever.

So let’s take a brief stroll around the bar exams to look at the stories some test takers will be telling from now until February…

A lot of the time, I think somebody needs to send the Whaaaambulance to the bar exams, but at one test-taking center, they actually needed a real ambulance. From a tipster:

Just a few minutes after 9 am a proctor falls down the stairs in a bar exam classroom at pace law in white plains ny. Test takers are not thrilled and the test administration is obviously delayed.

Hahaha. Oh, it’s okay to laugh at a person falling down the stairs. The proctor ended up being fine:

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The proctor was safely evac’d and the exam will simply be delayed until 9:30.

News on the proctor: she’ll be ok.

See, when you hear this story again, in November, from a person who only needed a few more points to pass the New York bar exam, they’re not going to tell you the part about how this delayed the test by just 30 minutes.

Elsewhere, the test taking software continues to malfunction. From another tipster:

Some issues this morning with SofTest, not fun. program was supposed to populate your softest exam number so you could log into your test. lots of people didn’t have that happen…

[L]ots of people who paid to take on a laptop who ended up having to handwrite… we started 40ish min late b/c of the tech issues.

You’d think that with all of the technology available on a freaking phone, we could find a way to take an exam on a computer. But every year, every administration of this exam, something somewhere seems to go wrong with the test taking software.

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If we can’t even master the computer software, we’re obviously powerless in the face of acts of God. From Connecticut:

So afternoon session took place during a tornado watch. A girl two rows over had to switch seats with 20 minutes left because the ceiling was leaking on her.

Now that’s some focus. I’m going to sit here for almost three hours with water pouring on me, doing my work. Only when I see the finish line does it occur to me that I’m getting wet for no reason.

What fresh horrors will Day 2 bring (or Day 1 in other states)? Let us know via tips@abovethelaw.com. Preferably after the exam, though — we want you to focus and overcome any issue the bar or the testing center throws at you.