August 23, 2006
Dear Everyone:
Yesterday afternoon, while a group of us were working on a presentation, one of my co-workers received an email. In our system, when a new email message arrives, the system displays a little window, showing who it’s from, the subject line, and the first line of the message.
I immediately recognized the sender as coming from the Institute of Certified Records Managers (ICRM). The first line of the message read, “Congratulations! You’ve qualified to take…” He had just qualified to take the CRM Exam in November. That makes at least three of us.
It also reminded me that the deadline to apply to take the actual exam is September 1st. And since I’ll be on vacation next week, I need to get that application filled out and mailed off before the end of this week. (The first application is to qualify to take the exam. The second application is to actually take the exam, Parts One through Five. The third application is to take those Parts One through Five that you didn’t pass. The final application, after you’ve passed all five parts, is to take Part Six.)
In looking at the application to take Parts One through Five, I realized that we are going to need a Proctor. A proctor is someone assigned to supervise students during an examination. Each applicant is required to find a volunteer to proctor them. The Institute doesn’t send the test to the applicant. They send it to the proctor.
Many years ago, someone I knew through ARMA asked me if I would proctor her for Part Six. Since I worked in “Livermore” at the time, it worked out very well. I was able to let her use one of the small workrooms where she could work undisturbed. I just handed her the test, closed the door and set the timer. When the time was up, she copied her essay to a diskette, we took it to my computer and printed it from there.
If I was the only one taking the exam, I would probably do the same thing: Find someone at ARMA who could let me take the test in a “controlled” environment. (You’re not allowed to take any books in with you, that sort of thing.)
But since there are three or more of us, I’m looking at another way to do this. I’ll reserve a conference room for the two days that we’ll be taking the tests. Our supervisor has already disqualified himself to proctor as there would be an obvious conflict of interest. Instead, we’re looking for someone else in the group. Someone whose best interest isn’t for us to pass.
That “volunteer” will hand us Part One. We’ll set the timer (you have one hour to answer 100 multiple-choice questions). When the timer goes off, we’ll all put down our pencils, gather the tests into an envelope or folder, and take them back to the proctor. There’s no reason for him/her to sit around in the conference room, we’ll police each other.
Then we’ll take a brief break before taking the next test. The only real problem that I see is that the test takes place November 2nd and 3rd. That second day is a Friday and most people have one Friday or the other off.
Speaking of being off, as I mentioned, I’m taking next week off. I plan to really relax and rest, so no Letter until September. Everyone have a safe and happy Labor Day.
Love, as always,
Pete
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