Updated News on DSST Exams

[bmills072200]

Okay...I just spoke with someone at a testing center and I was trying to schedule my MIS exam for tomorrow. She told me that MIS as well as 11 other exams are currently being "Beta" tested on paper ONLY. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I think it might have something to do with a possible breach of the DSST system and thus they are reissuing new exams for some specific tests.

The long and short of it is...this sucks...because I have no desire to wait how ever long it takes to get test results back by paper exams. She told me that this test along with the other 11 will not be avaliable by computer until July
1st.

I am curious to hear if anyone else has heard anything about this...I also really hate to be a ginny pig on a new exam...

[MISin08]

Hi, bmills --

Don't know if this has anything to do with your situation and the "beta test" but I was reviewing the MIS fact sheet yesterday and the exam has been updated for 2008 (which is a good thing IMHO).

[Inwe]

Do you happen to know what the other ten tests are? I am taking Statistics and Finance soon, and really would not be thrilled if I had to wait a month for my results.

[bmills072200]

Stats was one...Personal Finance was also one, but I do not think Principles of Finance was...

[knucyt]

Bmills Thanks for the information and sorry to hear about computer versus paper for your next exam. Did she tell you what the 11 exams are that have to be administered by paper for now?

INWE - I just called DSST direct and spoke with "David". I told him I wanted to verify that the Principles of Finanance and Money and Banking exams were still available via computer versus exams temporarily available as paper only.

After a long pause, he told me that those two exams are still being administered by computer.

I also asked for a copy of the tables for POF and was told that the Testing Center had to request them by fax - hopefully they will be clean copies...it sure would be nice to see them ahead of time to make sure they are the right ones and that they can be read OK.

If anyone hears any different about these two exams, please let me know!

Thanks!

[WendyR]

Thanks for this info. I was able to complete my DSST online this morning, after not being able to last week. Apparently there have been two recent updates that were sent out to DSST online testing centers and my testing center did not receive the second email, which caused my issue of not being able to take my exam last Thursday. Something is definitely going on with DSST's!

I plan to take Principles of Financial Accounting in a few weeks...I'm going to call my testing center to make sure I will be able to take in online.

[knucyt]

Thanks Wendy - that's good to know. Only one person at my local testing center is good about following up on that type of stuff - I always try and schedule my exams when he is working so that I don't end up in the situation you did (which also happened to me on a CLEP earlier this year) - the other person [the manager] just could not get the Admin login to work - local user error! and I had to leave and come back the next day.

All the best for tomorrow's exam.

[CaroM]

Here's To Your Health and Criminal Justice are two others that I had to take paper-based within the past couple weeks due to this beta testing. Drug and Alcohol Abuse was another of the 11 or so. The lady at my testing center said only select TC's were chosen for this beta testing, and they're doing it until June 30th. I'm taking my last exam (Principles of Supervision) this Thursday!... hopefully I won't run into any trouble!

[gus]

OK, it's good to know that it's not a matter of exam security. It's a little weird that they would call it beta testing as the name implies public testing, which can be done faster online (no reason to go paper based).

It mostly likely means that centers selected for beta testing have the new online versions while others will only continue to offer the previous version on paper until the beta testing is successful and complete.

[jeffs34]

When I was at a testing center on Saturday they told me it is because of security. Apparently someone stole some tests which is why they are putting out paper tests and updating the computer tests.