My D19 took the ACT yesterday for the 2nd time. She said it was awful. The group in her assigned classroom was small but she was distracted the entire time. She said alot of the other students were tapping their desk, beating their chest (?), bouncing their pencils on the desk and kicking the table the entire time. The proctor was reading some kind of spiral book and kept flipping the pages back and forth making a lot of noise. Two kids left the test midstream saying “just void my test. I can’t concentrate.”
My daughter didn’t leave, but she also didn’t finish most sections and said it was the hardest thing she has ever done because of all of the distractions.
Is there anything to do here other than just wait and see how her score comes out?
Did she speak with the proctor as the end of the test, or with the onsite supervisor? There probably is nothing to be done about her scores, but maybe that proctor can be booted from the list. When I have proctored that tyoe of exam, I wasn’t allowed to read anything other than the testing instructions.
Is your daughter normally distractible? Would it be worth your time to have her evaluated for that? If so, she might be able to retest in the future in a less distracting environment.
Thanks, @happymomof1. She didn’t say anything to anyone so I am guessing lesson learned. She is not normally distractable so it must have been bad. She knows one of the students who left the test midstream and that kid isn’t normally phased by stuff either.
She had a good score already but was hoping for another tiny boost. Her score is strong so I guess we will just go with it! She was hoping to be done with testing. I guess we will see!
Just call ACT and void the test based on what you said. They will most likely just give you the next test at the date you choose for free. You might also want to think about taking the test at a different site.
And the more important thing, by voiding the test it will be the same as if you never took the test at all. But you probably want to do the voiding ASAP, say tomorrow.
My kid had to void an SAT test once because the groundskeepers decided to do lawn maintenance in the middle of the test. So I have a bit of background on the voiding stuff.
The lawn maintenance would be different because others likely complained. If no one corroborates the issues the OP’s D stated then I think the next test will have to be paid for.
Two other kids left the testing room and voided their scores. The testing company ought to be able to use that as corroboration. I’m new at this stuff, but I sure hope they’ll give the OP a pass on the next test fee.
I would definitely let the ACT know that there was a problem. If for no other reason the ACT sometimes questions test scores when there is a large increase from one testing date to another so it would help if they were informed now that there were issues at the testing site that could negatively impact the score from this particular exam.
"She said alot of the other students were tapping their desk, beating their chest (?), bouncing their pencils on the desk and kicking the table the entire time. The proctor was reading some kind of spiral book and kept flipping the pages back and forth making a lot of noise. "
Some of this stuff sounds bizarre (beating their chest), some sounds like normal test room noise (flipping pages). Perhaps the acoustics were weird in the room but you’re also not going to get complete silence with many people in a room. Part of test taking ability is learning to tune out and learning to zone in and focus.
Is she prone to exaggeration (chest beating) and easily distracted?