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Pearson Vue Now On Day 5 of Massive Outage
Reader Patrick In Chicago is one of a few readers to write with this unpleasant news: "Computer-based testing provider Pearson Vue is now in day 5 of a global outage, preventing test-takers worldwide from sitting for exams. I was personally turned away from a Cisco exam on Wednesday morning because Pearson was unable to deliver. Countless people have posted to Pearson Vue's Facebook page detailing various states of panic. There are people who have certifications expiring. Others are unable to sit their medical board exams. Still others are unable to sit exams that they are required to pass in order to work — Pearson Vue's incompetence has actually prevented people from going out and making a paycheck." This reminds me of a friend of mine who had to wait half a year to re-take his bar exam, because of a software glitch on the part of ExamSoft's software.
Sorry to break the news, but MCAT, GRE and SAT are run by private firms. They're 'non profits' but they are not government entities.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
She can't refund you there, because you didn't pay her. You paid Vue, so you must go to them for the refund. Silly, I know, but that's how it works. She should have gotten out her Vue test center 800 number and called support, and if Vue support can't fix it remotely, then you get your money back.
I used to work at a test center (also a VAR and training center).
Learn to love Alaska
In my particular line of work a 4-5+ hour outage would make most national media news. Careful planning goes not into daily run but also what to do in the event of a major outage and backup plans including dr failover. If Pearson is this important and has far reaching and potential legal obligations to provide testing services, I would expect them to have plans to recover from anything short of a well distributed and targeted nuclear attack. That is the mindset of mission critical enterprise IT. I can't pass judgement of Pearson's infrastructure because I don't work there and we certainly don't have all the facts but this likely will be a huge wake up call to their Management. It should also be a huge opportunity for an outside IT contracting company to do an audit of their plans.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
It is partially local and partially remote.
Local admin station downloads the test before you take it and serves it to the test stations where you take it. This prevents connectivity issues from affecting you when you're already taking the exam. In such scenario you could complete exam, be scored however your results wouldn't be submitted to the VUE servers until connectivity is restored.
However if the admin station is unable to download the exams in the first place, then you cannot even start the exam.