EX210 individual (KOALA) exam - was asked to leave the room with the session still open when ending the exam

Latest response

Hi,

Today I took the EX210 exam. It was an individual exam, taken in a test center on a Red Hat laptop with a remote connection to the exam environment. For monitoring the laptop has a webcam, the screen is shared and there is a live chat available. I believe this is called a KOALA environment.

The exam itself went great. I was able to do everything I was asked to do. I tested everything I did, and everything worked as it was supposed to. So I was hoping for a score of 280+ (and honestly perhaps even a 300). I received the results fairly shortly afterwards: 18 out of 300. That really cannot be right. (Yes, I know that I'm not the only candidate with a failing score thinking that...) I've opened a request to review the exam, and we'll see what happens.

But that's not the reason I'm posting. I'm posting because I noticed something strange when ending the exam, and I'd like to know whether what I saw was normal or not. (I only did a Red Hat classroom exam before, never a remotely monitored one.)

During the exam, there was a potential problem with the laptop power connector. I mentioned this to the remote proctor over the live chat, and he instructed me to look at the back of the laptop. While I did that, he paused the exam. The exam session disappeared from view and a "paused" screen appeared, locking the session. Everything turned out to be OK, so I informed the proctor, and he unlocked the screen and I continued the exam. The strange part comes when I was finished with all tasks and wanted to end the exam. There was still 45 minutes on the clock, so I selected the "Request End Exam" option from the menu. The remote proctor came on the live chat and asked whether I really was done, which I confirmed. The strange thing was that he then asked me to leave the room, with the session still open and available (accepting input). I asked whether this was normal, but he said again that he could only end the exam after I left the room. So I did, and walked away while the screen still displayed the remote session with the browser showing the exam assignments (with the "revisit" and "done" buttons next to them). It wasn't locked in any way, while I knew this was possible because of what happened earlier with the power connector.

Is it normal to be asked to leave with the session still open? Was I supposed to press another End Exam button anywhere in the session, before pressing the "End Exam" button of the remote session? And if so, could this have influenced my results?

Thanks,
Jurjen

Responses