My PearsonVUE online proctored experience

Hi,

I’ve just completed my first Pearson OnVUE exam using online proctored for UiPath Advanced Developer Certificate. Just wanted to share my experience.

TL;DR;

I have a mixed feeling. I have 4 tries in total in 2 different days, 1 time the OnVUE application crashed, 2 times Proctor didn’t show up. Last time was quite smooth and the Proctor was friendly and helpful.

Long version

1st day

Paying and booking for examination through Pearson online portal was easy. On the day of my scheduled exam, I have checked in 30 minutes prior to the time. Check-in was straight forward and everything was alright. After I finished the check-in process, a proctor contacted me using online chat and asked me to show him that I have unplugged the power cord of my 2nd monitor (I have 2 monitors on my workstation). He then released my exam, but the exam screen couldn’t start, he gave it couple tries but the app still failed to start, he then asked me the restart my machine and do everything again.

After my PC restarted, I went through the process and came to the screen where I would be contacted by the Proctor. I sat and waited for nearly an hour without any signs that someone is monitoring… I tried to reach out to their Support chat, but all I see was “All the chat agents were busy helping other people…” In total I wasted 2 hours and 30 minutes just trying to start my exam.

The next day I was able to get a hold of the chat support person (early in the morning around 6am AEST), he told me that he couldn’t help except submitting a request for investigation, and I would hear back in 5 working days… Luckily I heard back in 1 business day and they re-scheduled same UiPath Exam to Aug 04, and gave me the option to re-schedule it to my likings.

2nd day

So I went in and rescheduled it to yesterday’s night. Start the check-in process 30 mins before my exam time, then the waiting game began again! I sat there waiting for another 30 mins without anyone contacting me… Tried the support page, Online Chat but same experience, no one is ready to help. This time I logged in into Pearson VUE online dashboard and noticed that I can click “Begin Exam” again and it generated a new Access code.

I then restart the OnVUE application, copy the new Access code; since it was a new code, I had to do all the check-in again. Only this time, a proctor contacted me shortly after I uploaded all the required photos. She asked me again to cover my monitors (I was using a laptop this time, afraid that the OnVUE software was having some problem running on my super Workstation). I showed her that my monitors have been unplugged and she was happy with that. She released my exam and everything went smoothly after that. She even contacted me during my exam to ask me to remove my hand off my mouth (just a habit when I was thinking).

It took me more than 1 hour just to try to start the exam yesterday.

So, in total, I wasted 3 hours and 30 minutes just to “check-in” and start my exam… Imagine that you had to go through lots of troubles before a serious examination, it definitely didn’t sound fun at all.

Finally, I finished my real exam in 1 hour 4 minutes, got 82% first try. I was thinking that I would need to have a practical Exam. But just found out today that there is no practical assignment anymore :laughing:

I personally think the exam questions regarding the GUI of UiPath Studio, the properties of the OOTB Activities were not really as good as the other question regarding the core logic and behaviours, coding skills… It’s not a big deal to work out how to navigate the GUI and use certain Activities since everything is visual, has tooltips… etc (Properly because those are the area I scored the least so that’s that :stuck_out_tongue: )

2 Likes

Hi @mrducnguyen,

Thanks for such a detailed description of your experience. I’m sorry to see you’ve experienced all these inconveniences while trying to take your exam and will definitely raise this with VUE to investigate, including not being able to talk to support during these times, which is crucial.

Congratulations on passing the exam and becoming certified! Your feedback is very valuable, so please continue to share it. Have a lovely day!

Best,
Andreea
UCP team

Thank you for sharing your experience :slightly_smiling_face: How many questions did the exam has?

We cannot give the exact number, but between 60 and 70. :slight_smile: