proctored exam

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Have you ever had to perform an online proctored examination?
Not a simple and nice experience, I assure you.
What happened to me?

I finished my preparation about Azure (the Microsoft Cloud Environment) and I felt ready to be examined to get the official certification.
The process is online (not sure if due to
Covid-19 reasons) and start from this webpage https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/ and (in my case and probably also in yours) will reach here
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-900.

The page explains many things, included the Training and certification guide and Support for certification exams.

But after enroll, I discovered that the exam isn’t performed by Microsoft directly, instead an external company does it (https://aka.ms/onlineexamsPSI).

Anyway I scheduled it for august the 18 th at 7 am (I like to work early morning: the day is longer this way… 🙂 ).

I prepared the room, by removing all the objects except my laptop, a glass of water, my ID card and the headphones from the desk I focused on the exam.

Half an hour before, the candidate is allowed to enter the virtual room, but unfortunately (I discover) isn’t just a chat at all: it’s more properly a “control loose” of your computer during the examination.
First I had to install a software (https://support.edx.org/hc/en-us/articles/360038358294-PSI-RP-Now-proctoring-from-Software-Secure-on-Mac-Catalina-OS-) that took control of my machine, then to scan everything (room, sleeves, ears… ) (the nice version of this process is visible see how here https://youtu.be/awv9T_B4tcg, minutes 5 ).

That was boring, but just lasted 5 minutes.  The bad things appear during the examination itself. It seems weird but I felt really uncombable:

  • no possible to spell high voice the word
  • no possible to eat o… go into the bathroom
  • or stand to open a window or enabling the room cooling…

The proctor asked me to keep my eyes in to the screen (I could not even think looking at the ceiling…)

Well, I hope I passed you the sense of the difficulties and of the constriction related to convince a remote proctor that you’re not cheating…

At least (after 1 hour of exam) I had my certification  “just in time!” 🙂

After enjoining the result, don’t forget to uninstall the software
– https://support.edx.org/hc/en-us/articles/360000304507-How-do-I-uninstall-the-Software-Secure-Proctoring-Software-

– https://helpdesk.psionline.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360056164772-RPNow-How-to-Uninstall-Remove-RPNow

So, en resume, I suggest you to carefully prepare for a proctored examination: it isn’t so pleasant as the idea suggests!!

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