Has anyone else asked to move seats mid exam b/c of being sat beside a complete D-BAG??

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SHoot85

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I’m still pissed off about this, b/c it definitely threw me off for a good 10 min or so. I’m also curious whether I’ll get any emails from CFAI about it.. ( i mean i doubt it, but the proctor took my passport and admission ticket for a while, like 5 min before returning, as I continued on exam)
So I realized the tool beside me (we’re sat at tables of 2 in Toronto) was a complete jag off when I’m finishing my AM exam and this guy, who’d already finished but couldn’t leave, started erasing sh*t in his booklet very furiously, shaking the table for almost a minute. I was floored. I gave the best semi-turn I could under CFA laws to show my disgust. He later started putting his 8 pencils together in a rubber band, and taking it out, and putting them back in, repeatedly. He’s not even allowed a rubber band (which was later taken from him in PM portion. He also had to take his eraser out of it’s sleeve b/c he’s clearly too dense to read the rules.
Anyway, I should have said something about that, but I’m not really a confrontational type, so just went to lunch and forgot about it. When I came back for PM, he had his head down most of the the time, and I should have mentioned it, but didn’t. Anyway, so about 30 mins into the PM, I realize this clown had completely given up. He pushed his calculater to the top of the table out of reach as he sighed and just did about everything possible that he could to be distracting but not overly so a proctor would come over. Like he took his watch off his wrist, slammed it on the table…just all sorts of ridiculous unnecessary things. I was getting very upset as this dude was clearly trying to take me down with him. He raised his hand and asked to goto the washroom (he went during the AM session to for a while…clearly not there out of much seriousness…) and finally I took it as an opportunity to ask to be moved. This was about 45 min in or so. I was completely thrown off by his antics from the exam. The proctor had to call another proctor over, with a different color vest, and asked him and told him the guy beside me is “very distracting”. Anyway, after some initial surprise it seemed, as I gather this type of thing doesn’t happen too often, he moved me to a different table, which was thankfully empty, and after about 5 min or so I was able to regain my focus and get back into a groove.
Anyway, just had to vent really. Like here I am having spent months and 500+ hours of prep for an exam and this clown who’s clearly given up, was legit doing everything in his power to be as obnoxious as possible. I wanted to slap him! It def ****ed with my focus big time, but I’m just glad I got out of there and didn’t let it continue to affect me. Still livid about it tho..
 
Sorry you had to go through that, hopefully the effect is negligible.
Not as bad as your experience, but the guy beside me was ripping some serious a** throughout the entire AM session. Brought earplugs, could’ve used noseplugs.
 
That sucks to hear. Just like last year, there seems to be one or two people like that in the exam setting. There is loud nose breether, loud mouth breether. Guy/girl who *sighs* loudly everytime they run into a question they dont immediately get. Unfortunately its something we all have to deal with.
 
I moved after lunch, for two reasons– one there was a lady behind me thrasing her exam paper around like a wheat shredder, and two, there was an air vent above me blowing air so hard my papers were fluttering like sheets in the wind. I was allowed to move to the back row, and things were considerably better.
 
The guy next to me was pretty fcking annoying. He kept his calculator on the table the entire time and was hitting the keys unecessarily hard. The testing center used these flimsy wooden tables, so the table kept vibrating anytime he hit a key.
It still pisses me thinking about it right now. I almost asked to be moved but didn’t. I surprisingly wasn’t affected by it too much, so nbd, I guess.
 
There was a kid in front of me with squeaky shoes and every time he (assuming) got nervous he’d move those suckers around like it was going out of style. After I beat him unmerciful, the rest of the candidates roared with approval and a proctor gave me a high-five. Then I answered ‘A’ for every question, for alpha-male.
No that sucks you had to go through that. I got pretty lucky, the candidates around me were cool guys and it made that horrific waiting period between reporting and the test being passed out go by quickly just chatting with nice people. I did bring ear plugs for this exam and found them to be quite helpful and luckily no one called me a nerd.
 
Luckily I was at a table by myself, but there was an older gentleman a few seats ahead of me that I swear must have gone for 7-8 washroom breaks at least, and at odd times…like right after getting and opening his test. I wonder if the CFAI monitors/tracks this? Seemed very suspicious. He was also wearing an incredibly bulky jacket and never took it off.
What’s to stop someone from just keeping notes in their jacket and going to the bathroom stall to review? I only took one bathroom break and didn’t use the stall, so I’m not sure what the procedure, but this guy seemed very shady.
 
I wanted to move seats the moment the proctor told me my seat was #13. Not that I’m incredibly superstitious but it didn’t sound positive. I mean, would you even ask for seat #13? So many buildings here in Chicago don’t even have 13th floors. They go from 12 to 14.
Anyway, I was too scared that someone would botch up administratively if I asked for a seat reassignment, like maybe CFAI would think I hadn’t shown up or something.
There was someone sitting behind me who was coughing nonstop the first hour of the PM session. It was so distracting but I decided it was probably way more stressful for that person than me. He finally got up to get a glass of water to clear his throat. Or left. Not sure which.
Nothing like your story though.
 
NineNineSix wrote:
Luckily I was at a table by myself, but there was an older gentleman a few seats ahead of me that I swear must have gone for 7-8 washroom breaks at least, and at odd times…like right after getting and opening his test. I wonder if the CFAI monitors/tracks this? Seemed very suspicious. He was also wearing an incredibly bulky jacket and never took it off.
What’s to stop someone from just keeping notes in their jacket and going to the bathroom stall to review? I only took one bathroom break and didn’t use the stall, so I’m not sure what the procedure, but this guy seemed very shady.
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Yes, it’s so easy to conceal notes - I too didn’t understand how someone has the time in L2 to go for a water or toilet break. They were definitely cheating.
 
I actually ran to the bathroom during the PM exam…5 min after we started…drank too much coffee and diet coke…..not gonna do that again during the break next time lol
 
Not definitely cheating. About a month before the exam I had a medical issue and had to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes for about 3 weeks. I could barely study. I was panicking that I was wouldn’t be able to sit for the exam because there was no way I’d finish. Maybe the person was cheating. Maybe not. I feel sorry for the person.
 
Yeah sorry - I was probably overexcited to be back at work that I didn’t consider the medical possibility. Could be. Who knows!
 
SHoot85 wrote:
I’m still pissed off about this, b/c it definitely threw me off for a good 10 min or so. I’m also curious whether I’ll get any emails from CFAI about it.. ( i mean i doubt it, but the proctor took my passport and admission ticket for a while, like 5 min before returning, as I continued on exam)
So I realized the tool beside me (we’re sat at tables of 2 in Toronto) was a complete jag off when I’m finishing my AM exam and this guy, who’d already finished but couldn’t leave, started erasing sh*t in his booklet very furiously, shaking the table for almost a minute. I was floored. I gave the best semi-turn I could under CFA laws to show my disgust. He later started putting his 8 pencils together in a rubber band, and taking it out, and putting them back in, repeatedly. He’s not even allowed a rubber band (which was later taken from him in PM portion. He also had to take his eraser out of it’s sleeve b/c he’s clearly too dense to read the rules.
Anyway, I should have said something about that, but I’m not really a confrontational type, so just went to lunch and forgot about it. When I came back for PM, he had his head down most of the the time, and I should have mentioned it, but didn’t. Anyway, so about 30 mins into the PM, I realize this clown had completely given up. He pushed his calculater to the top of the table out of reach as he sighed and just did about everything possible that he could to be distracting but not overly so a proctor would come over. Like he took his watch off his wrist, slammed it on the table…just all sorts of ridiculous unnecessary things. I was getting very upset as this dude was clearly trying to take me down with him. He raised his hand and asked to goto the washroom (he went during the AM session to for a while…clearly not there out of much seriousness…) and finally I took it as an opportunity to ask to be moved. This was about 45 min in or so. I was completely thrown off by his antics from the exam. The proctor had to call another proctor over, with a different color vest, and asked him and told him the guy beside me is “very distracting”. Anyway, after some initial surprise it seemed, as I gather this type of thing doesn’t happen too often, he moved me to a different table, which was thankfully empty, and after about 5 min or so I was able to regain my focus and get back into a groove.
Anyway, just had to vent really. Like here I am having spent months and 500+ hours of prep for an exam and this clown who’s clearly given up, was legit doing everything in his power to be as obnoxious as possible. I wanted to slap him! It def ****ed with my focus big time, but I’m just glad I got out of there and didn’t let it continue to affect me. Still livid about it tho..
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That blows, but the zombie apocalypse could be going on and I’m not going to let 400+ hours of work be wasted. :)
 
zurich was fairly uneventful compared to 2014, miley cyrus stayed away so it was a more peaceful affair.
the weather was perfect, which probably kept a lot of the L2 folks outdoors, I had 2 empty desks to the right and left. and 6 empty rows of desks in front.
the afternoon I can only guess what was going on. just after it started the proctors were acting like someone had topped themselves behind me. I kept my head down and just looked at the desk, maybe someone at the back could fill in what went on? ( I decided that someone had switched identities)
then i thought i heard an ambulance radio? bleeping away, bleep blip-blip-blip, this continued and no, not a radio, a calculator? someone had a calculator with bleepy buttons??
maybe a desk? yes it was a fucking desk.. bleep bleep bleep.. a level one dude had a desk which he had figured out how to make the thing squeek and was gonna spend the whole fucking afternoon making it bleep like a supermarket checkout.
bleep bleep.. bleep
bleep-bleep.
still, it beats ‘like a g6, like a g6..’ sigh
 
We had a medical emergency at ours in morning session where they told us to close our books and no bathroom/water breaks for about 5-10 minutes. Looks like an older proctor had a problem, got wheeled out on a stretcher. I was just reviewing at the time but I’m sure it threw some people out of sync.
 
I had a rather bad experience taking Level 1 with the woman sitting next to me. Prior to the exam, I could see she was from a foreign country and was either a student here or had flown here for the test (she had a foreign passport). At any rate, in the afternoon session, she started beating herself in her legs and upper body and making a fair amount of noise. I didn’t dare look over for fear of being accused of cheating but through my ear plugs I could hear her pounding away at herself. I couldn’t believe the proctors weren’t doing anything. I didn’t want to raise my hand for fear of losing time myself and kept hoping the situation would either stop or the proctors would put a stop to it. Neither happened. When the afternoon session ended, I turned to look at her and she was sobbing. I was, of course, annoyed but my first inclination was to comfort her but I don’t think she spoke English very well and so I just put a comforting hand on her shoulder and left. One of my friends was sitting a row back on the end and could see her clearly doing all of this (while it was going on it sounded like someone was punching themselves but I couldn’t see it). I’ve always wondered what became of her. I don’t know if the (mental) pressure was self-inflicted (clearly the punching was) or if her family had high expectations of her and she felt she wasn’t meeting them but I still feel bad for her when I think about it.
 
That’s pretty sad. People need to realize that at the end of the day, it’s just an exam. It doesn’t dictate or define you one way or the other. It speaks volumes about them and that they can’t handle adversity and pressure. It is all part of learning. you stumble and get back up. If you fail, you fail. Try again….it’s not the end ot the world.
 
You were sat in tables of two in TO? That f**ing blows! I’m really suprised they would do that. I’m from Canada, and that seems odd. What was the venue, did they cheap out?
Wouldn’t be easy for someone to look at your answer sheet? Or as you said annoy you by erasing a lot, or writing hard?
In Singapore, we had individual desks that were actually wider than normal, (we wrote at the Expo (huge convention centre)). They even put a a piece of felt under each table to balance it in case it wobbled, which impressed me (that usually annoys the sh** out of me that i bring tissues to stuff under just in case). Other than that Expo in Singapore is normally freezing cold inside with AC (seriously I brought two sweaters, and it’s Asia), the only problem was that the desks had bars on the bottom preventing your from pushing your chair close, so you had to lean in alot, and after 6 hours my back was killing me. But that seems to pale in comparison to sitting next to someone, especially if they were annoying.
 
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