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June 19, 2006
Open source test taking
You can take the California bar by hand if you want to, but after three years’ hard PowerBooking my handwriting has become pretty much illegible. People like me have to use laptops.
You can’t use a (G4) Mac though.1 To promote security and discourage in-test peeks at notes and outlines, California requires installation of a program called ExamSoft.
My non-expert understanding of this program is that you install it with Administrator rights on a PC running Windows. Then, on test day, you can load up ExamSoft and have it reboot the machine in “Exam mode”. What ends up happening is that upon reboot, ExamSoft takes over your boot routine so that you don’t get Windows as you’re accustomed to it—you get ExamSoft’s test-taking software, and nothing else. By taking over the shell, ExamSoft is able to stop the user from accessing any of his other files or running any other programs. You take the test, and ExamSoft saves your exam encrypted on the drive.2 Then you reboot out of ExamSoft, back to your normal computer.
You won’t be surprised, Reader, to learn that this system is not without critics. There are reports of it crashing in exams, which really is a terrifying prospect. But more then anything it seems a G– – d– – systems maintenance nightmare. Even if the software works, and doesn’t crash on the exam, the thought of installing this thing, knowing that it’s going to be rewriting boot routines, etc., gives me the heebie jeebies.
On the other hand. people will cheat on this exam unless prevented. The stakes here are high enough for even the most honorable among us to be tempted. Either the bar exam needs a soup-to-nuts reconsideration to take that into account,3 or some stop-gap is needed.
So I’m giving this solution to ExamSoft: port your app to Linux. License Red Hat or roll your own distro, and distribute the product on CDs or by direct download ISOs to applicants. Then, on exam day, just have everyone boot off the CD. We applicants will gladly pay the price; ExamSoft can get a controlled operating environment—no more system conflicts from people installing Bonzo Buddy or running otherwise non-standard OS installations4—and the bar gets the satisfaction of insulating the profession from digital reality for a few more years. And the best part? Linux runs on just about any processor architecture. So those of us with old G4s could play, too.
What do you say, ExamSoft? It’s too late for me of course; I’ve gritted my teeth and installed ExamSoft on a ThinkPad borrowed from my Dad (Happy Father’s Day!), and come July I’ll be engaged in any number of pagan rituals in the hope that they’ll keep my computer from crashing on those three magical days. But future generations could really benefit from a little progressive thinking now. And it would convert ExamSoft from a systems integrity scofflaw to a cutting-edge innovator in one swoop. Win-win.
1 Hypothetically you could use ExamSoft on an Intel Mac running Windows XP. One of my classmates is considering this on his new Mac Book.
2 ExamSoft confers other benefits too, like letting the bar examiners push the bar exam out to applicants’ computers several weeks before the actual exam. It’s eerie knowing that the entire exam is sitting there, encrypted, on the PC on my desk.
3 It does, by the way. But that’s another topic.
4 People with non-standard hardware might run into a hiccup or two. But that shouldn’t be a problem—at this point in time, neither ExamSoft nor anyone else wants applicants to use their 802.11x cards or other peripherals. If the screen, disk, keyboard and mouse work, you’re pretty much money.
Posted by Rob Courtney at June 19, 2006 09:02 PM
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