Proctortrack 4+

I tried taking a test on here and it was absolutely horrible. It was a monitored test and it was probably one of the worst ones I had to take. The week before it had so many difficult instructions that me not anyone in my family could figure out. So I decided to have help from a friend of mine the week after. The week after when I was ready for the test I pressed the go to test button and it had all these badly worded difficult instructions that made everything confusing. Again, non of these instructions were available until the scheduled time of the test. After 45 minutes when we figured out what the directions were saying I started the test. We needed 2 screens. 2 SCREENS!! It was ridiculous because it clearly stated that we were not allowed to have a cellular device in the room. It was not accommodating to some people that don’t have anything other than a cellular device. While I was doing the test, it was really frustrating. My test took approximately 3 hours and it was the most uncomfortable testing experience ever. I wasn’t allowed to rest my head on my head even though I was still in the camera frame because it “covered my face”. I was also not allowed to place my legs up on the chair though it was very cold because it was “not proper”. I WAS IN MY OWN HOME. My over all summery is if your any school reading this, DO NOT USE THIS APP OR WEBSITE OR ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH IT. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO USE AND YOH WILL REGRET IT!!

I don’t usually leave reviews, but this app has literally been one of the worst technological experiences of my life, full stop, no exaggeration. The American Board of Surgery charged me a total of $1850 to take my qualifying exam, which thanks to COVID-19 was administered virtually using Proctortrack to over 1000 people. Apparently, the ABS did not read any of the prior 1-star reviews, because the issues were all foreseeable: issues with room scans, phones timing out, webcams timing out, etc., all leading to hundreds of people never being able to start their test, getting shut off halfway through, or harassed by their “proctors” who all seem to be foreign-based. These proctors would not respond to frantic messages for hours at a time, leaving people who have dedicated 5-7 years of their life to reach this point and at a minimum, $1850 to take this test, in the lurch. The problems were so severe that the ABS ultimately had to cancel the entire test. That means months of preparation and studying for over 1000 people has been wasted: time away from friends and family, time we could have been doing productive research or moving or just living life prior to starting jobs or fellowship. What a disaster. To any company/organization considering using Proctortrack in the future: you’ve been warned.

Proctortrack was contracted to monitor the COVID-era version of the American Board of Surgery Qualifying Exam, the first half of becoming “board certified” as a surgeon. The process involved downloading an app to your computer that granted proctors full access to monitor your screen during the exam as well as visual and audio monitoring through the webcam, speakers, and microphone. In addition, an app needed be installed on your smartphone to monitor you from a different angle via the camera and microphone.

The system was unable to perform one of the initialization steps (a 360 degree survey of the room and a video of the desk space). The proctor assigned to me stopped responding to my requests for assistance for over two hours. Emailing the company support generated an automated email and nothing else. The phone number to support put me on hold, listing off my place in the queue regularly and then would hang up on me as soon as I was first in line. Glitches happen, especially for large scale processes in new settings. The customer service and communication was non-existent, generating stress and angst on an already difficult day. The company needs a serious restructuring of its support infrastructure. If I could give less than one star, I would.