<p>Last Saturday, my daughter took the SAT and was the victim of an incompetent proctor. If you have horror stories about incompetent proctors I'd like to hear them. There is strength in numbers, and we may be able to get some rare justice from the College Board organization if we band together.</p>
<p>Well, not SAT but ACT. S didn’t mention it at the time but another student reported the proctor and S was offered an chance to retake with previous scores deleted. he elected not to do so. 
Call the College Board; this isn’t the first time.</p>
<p>i took the sat last year. the proctor stopped the test 3 minutes before it was suppose to. this also happened when i took the ap chem test (the clock she was using was wrong so she bought in a new one with a diff time in the middle of the test)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think that banding together is going to change the CollegeBoard’s approach in general (if that were the case, all of us who hate them would have gotten rid of them years ago!). But agree that if there was a specific incident, report it immediately. If your kid didn’t report it, you should call in as a parent (if you are certain that your kid has their story straight).</p>
<p>Explain what happened…</p>
<p>This seems to be pretty common. Two of my friends allege that they have had proctors who have done this. When I took the SAT in May, my proctor called one Critical Reading section 5 minutes early and I freaked out, but some girls who were paying close attention to the time clarified.</p>
<p>DS had a nightmare experience the first time he took the SAT in a neighboring city high school (not his). According to DS (and verified by his friends) the following occurred:</p>
<p>1) The proctor had trouble reading multi-syllable words in the directions and kept mis-pronouncing words.
2) There were a group of not very academic students who were forced to take the test, got angry (got in a big argument with the proctor) when they weren’t allowed to leave part-way through the test, and complained bitterly throughout the rest of the test.
3) When told to sign their names in cursive, the same group of students complained that they couldn’t remember how to write in cursive, so the proctor took several minutes to write the entire alphabet on the board in cursive while everyone watched and/or shouted out the letters.
3) A student asked why there wasn’t a clock, so the proctor went to search for one, and was gone for several minutes. He returned and started the test late. Another person came to deliver a clock and proceeded to climb over a couple of students (taking the test) to try to mount it on the wall.
4) A student asked to go to the restroom during the test and was denied, so had a loud argument with the proctor.
5) Another student brought food and a water bottle into the testing room which she opened during the break. She accidentally knocked the bottle over which soaked the answer sheet and test booklet of the girl sitting next to her.
6)The proctor started the next section of the test (because they were so far behind at this point) and left the room to try to find out what to do about the water-soaked answer sheet, leaving his teenaged daughter to monitor the group while he was gone)
7) Because they were so far behind, the other groups in the building took their breaks at different times, and got out an hour earlier, making a lot of noise as they milled in the hall.</p>
<p>By the end of the test DS was completely overwrought. My husband and I were waiting for him, and couldn’t figure out what was taking him so long.</p>
<p>I talked with his GC immediately afterwards, who called the CB as a “what-if” to see what procedure would be followed if an official complaint was filed. The response was that there would be an investigation and if significant violations were verified, all scores would be canceled and students would receive a credit towards re-taking the test. Because I knew that some of the seniors were taking it for the last time, I didn’t want to formally report the incident and have their score canceled in case, by some miracle, they were happy with their results. The GC and I talked it over, and she, instead, reported it directly to the test administrator at that high school who thanked her for calling and promised that the proctor would never again allowed to administer the test again.</p>
<p>DS took the test again a few months later at a different school, and raised each of his scores by almost 100 points!</p>
<p>A friend’s S took the SAT last Saturday. My friend wasn’t very clear about what the proctor did but whatever it was caused the students to have to re-start the test so they were in the classroom from 8a.m. 'til 2p.m. !!! To make matters worse, there was no air conditioning in the building. The temp. was over 90 degrees outside. The kids were miserable. My neighbor’s S got so hot he vomited which caused the proctor to clear the classroom so it could be cleaned up and then go back to the test. My friend was so mad.</p>
<p>Wow, sounds like MANY bad experiences. One of the advantages of having kids who have “accommodations” is that the testing starts and ends on time, in a quiet room with air conditioning and competent proctors. This is crucial for those of us whose kids have medical issues involving having enough stamina to withstand the testing. Even with these accommodations, my kids were generally unable to attend school for about a week after the 4+ hour standardized testing in HS because they were so utterly exhausted. </p>
<p>A common problem is having to wait for all the stragglers who signed up for the test at the normal testing sites, as each proctor has to take attendance and wait until the designated time to allow latecomers to get there, even tho everyone is told to come 30+ minutes BEFORE the test time.</p>
<p>I took mine in Kabul. We got shelled during the critical reading section =-</p>