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Oxford/Cambridge Admissions Testing Issues

FragglePete

By FragglePete
in Educational Software

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FragglePete

FragglePete

Posted
Posted

Hi all,

 

We're running a couple of students today doing the Oxford/Cambridge Entrance Exams - via admissionstesting.ox.ac.uk

 

Anybody else having issues? Started off well, but it now keeps kicking them out or pages just go to 'waiting to respond' - even the Exam Officer dashboard took an age to respond. The school is closed today, we have just two students doing this on our 1Gb/1Gb line so would indicate the issue their end. But, just wanted to see if anybody else had issues because there is not a lot I can do here.

 

Pete

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nwkeene

nwkeene

Posted
Posted

same here... 3 students, rest of school on Inset... v slow to respond... phones lines don't connect or fall over after two rings... on line chat says 'currently not working... we're on a 1gb line as well... 1 student took 50 mins to get on and started...

 

...and they want to make all exams digital... :frusty:

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MartinT

MartinT

Posted
Posted (edited)

We're running the test right now (MAT) and, so far, it's running smoothly.

 

EDIT: while the students are ok, the exam console has stopped responding once and kicked out another time.

Looks like another resource issue like the Cambridge exams two years ago.

Edited by MartinT
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RLR

RLR

Posted
Posted
Most of our students started okay. We had two students that got stuck on the loading screen and just would not let them start. After about 30-45 mins and locking/unlocking the test they got in. The admin portal is very slow.
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MartinT

MartinT

Posted
Posted

Dear Centre Admin,

 

We would like to inform you that we are experiencing slowness in accessing the tests. We request you to wait for few mins and we will let you know when things are back to normal. We assure you that students will not loose any test time.

 

In case you face any issues or have any inquiries, you can log in to the portal and click on the "Chat with us" icon to communicate with one of our agents. Alternatively, you can contact us through email at [email protected].

 

Best regards,

TCS Test Centre Support Team

 

[shame they can't spell 'lose']

pete

pete

Posted
Posted (edited)

Running it here for a class full of students.

 

We're on a gig connection with ~20% utilisation and it's taking ~20 minutes for the site to load.

 

One of my techs reported seeing a "2000 connections reached" or similar notice. My guess is the outsourced provider either didn't properly load test before the actual testing cycle or is auto-scaling rather than pre-loading and then scaling back if need be.

 

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/guide/new-arrangements-oxfords-admissions-tests

Edited by pete
Chockster

Chockster

Posted
Posted

Our exams officer has just had an email with a paper version of the test paper to run for the students affected, and a "We deeply apologise".

 

Tough on the poor kids who, already nervous for an exam, then have to sit through this rubbish.

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ICT-Joe

ICT-Joe

Posted
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Same issue here - we have logged the student in but we can not get any further. Our Exams Officer has started the test so the student should see if their end. However, we are just stuck on the first page after the login with "loading..." across the screen.
jthompson

jthompson

Posted
Posted (edited)
We have the same issue now, running ELAT tests, anyone else with problems on those tests?
ELAT test has been delayed from 11am start to 1130. We have one candidate who has now been able to launch that one after waiting until 11:30.

 

The broadcast chat message on the site was updated to mention the delay to the start of the ELAT.

Edited by jthompson
mikes

mikes

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Posted
We had this nightmare too we could not phone them nor did they respond to e-mail. So the poor students get panicky and we look foolish. They did not even put a notification on their website. Trash
RLR

RLR

Posted
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We also have one student doing the ELAT test. They pressed launch and just got stuck loading. When our exams officer logged into the portal, the student didn't have a test assigned against them any more. Odd as the student wouldn't see the launch button if there was no test assigned to them.
jthompson

jthompson

Posted
Posted
We also have one student doing the ELAT test. They pressed launch and just got stuck loading. When our exams officer logged into the portal, the student didn't have a test assigned against them any more. Odd as the student wouldn't see the launch button if there was no test assigned to them.
Similar here. The candidate attempted the launch pretty much bang on the original start time of 11am, but the page sat loading for 10mins before I killed it to try again, only the test had disappeared from the current test list for her. Reappeared when refreshing after 1130 though, so hopefully your candidate is on now, too.
MartinT

MartinT

Posted
Posted
They had the cheek to tell our Exams Officer that there were 'too many students' doing the testing. WTF - they knew exactly how many candidates they were expecting!
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kentt

kentt

Posted
Posted

An absolute joke, I spent some time getting things prepared for this and then to have all of these delays and connection issues.

Some candidates had to wait 35-40 mins to get connected only to have the page drop again later.

TechMonkey

TechMonkey

Posted
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You'd have thought knowing how many candidates across how many centres are sitting what tests at what time would be useful information for capacity planning.

 

This is what I don't understand. If it was bookings for a test or an event I can see numbers being an issue if you misestimated demand. But they know the number of pupils and when they are starting!!

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mikes

mikes

Posted
Posted
Also we accidentally had one of our laptops the students were using set to lock after 10 mins of idle time - if the student leaves the laptop because they are writing and the screen locks, the test automatically becomes "interrupted" and gets locked on the backend, and the exams officer has to log un and unblock the test. So beware of this.
nwkeene

nwkeene

Posted
Posted

Our exams officer has recieved this reply to a query about the 'difficulties' she had today..

 

Hi,

Our technical team has looked into the root cause of the issue and we can assure you that it wont be repeated again.

Regards,

TCS Test Centre Support Team

 

The cynic in me is not convinced...

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