Random but important details we’ve learned about the Prometric experience after day 1

Today we surveyed our customers who took the ERM and QFI Quant exam under the new CBT format at Prometric centers on Monday, October 26. Here are a few things we’ve learned that we wanted to relay to anyone planning to take a CBT exam in the coming days.

To be clear, we have no way of verifying the accuracy of any of this information and are simply relying on information reported in our survey. However, we are focusing on things that appeared in multiple responses from people literally worldwide.

  • CTRL-F does not work (i.e. you can’t do a “find” or a keyword search in the documents). This includes the very large PDF case study provided with the ERM exam.
  • ALT-TAB does not work (shortcut for switching windows).
  • Several people reported difficulty uploading their Word and Excel files at the end. Some reported that the Prometric uploader would not accept files with a number in the file name. Others reported that it wouldn’t accept special characters. Some reported that when they initially downloaded their Word/Excel files to start the test, the Prometric system saved the files with “(1)” in the file name by default. They had to rename the file to get rid of that string before the Prometric uploader would accept it. Based on this, our advice is to rename your files to be purely alpha-only characters after downloading, and don’t wait until the last second to upload the files.
    • Update: after looking at more anecdotes from our customers and around the web, it sounds like “(1)” will only appear in the file name if you download the files more than once. In any case, it sounds like you need to get rid of that piece of the file name before trying to upload it.
  • Some reported that they were indeed able to eat a sandwich/snack during while taking a break outside the exam room. However, very, very few people surveyed actually took a break.
  • Some reported medium-to-long delays during the check-in process at Prometric because of various administrative or technical issues. Most of these issues eventually got sorted out. Please have a patient/flexible mindset when you arrive at Prometric. Try not to get frazzled if you have to work through administrative logistics like this before getting started. 
  • We asked people who had taken a handwritten exam in the past to compare it to Word/Excel. The vast majority of people felt that being able to type verbal responses into Word was a welcome change, but most felt that Excel was more challenging / time-consuming than pen and paper when it comes to writing out visible formulas and explaining work. This was a nearly universal theme and it’s clear that the biggest “time risk” in the new format is spending too much time in Excel on questions that require a response in Excel.
  • A few miscellaneous comments on the exam timer:
    • The timer can get hidden behind windows if you use all of the screen
    • The final timer reminder happens when there are 10 minutes left, so pay close attention to the time after that point 

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