Ranting Bankruptcy (and Softest)

I don't want to make a habit of this, but I just want to say that my experience for the last four hours was miserable.

I thought that I was well-enough prepared. I thought that I could just use the model answers as a guide to produce a semi-intelligent response. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I didn't. Perhaps I should start from the beginning...

Softest. This infernal test-taking program is the biggest pain in the ass. For those of us who are devoted Mac users, it isn't even available. So if you have a Macintosh, you can't take the exam on your computer. You've either got to hand-write (which is the equivalent basically of dropping 1/3 of a letter grade in my opinion), or you've got to find yourself an IBM-compatible laptop. Luckily for me, I knew this before buying my Mac and I kept my old computer mainly for just this very purpose. It's basically a Softest Processor for me now.

Unluckily for me, the primary reason I bought the new computer was because the keyboard stopped working and the monitor occassionally went crazy. That means that when I take an exam I have to lug along a separate keyboard. Unluckily for me, that separate keyboard recently developed a space bar problem. The problem being that the space bar didn't work. Unless my professor wantedanexamthatlookedlikethis, I would have to get a new keyboard. Luckily for me, I obtained one.

With the keyboard in tote, I headed up to the exam. I got to the room and booted up my computer. No internet. My ethernet cord was plugged in - that was my insurance. I knew that the wireless card I had left at home usually didn't work so I just brought the ethernet cord because I was sure it would work. Didn't work.

Now... the newest version of this ingenious program requires an internet connection so that you can upload your answer directly after the exam instead of saving it to a disk. This great improvement saves time and disks and creates many problems.

I got frustrated and decided to run home to get the wireless card on the off-chance it would work. I ran the 12 blocks there and back and... luckily for me, the wireless card was working.

But I wasn't the only one frustrated with Softest. Two guys in my class, through no fault of their own, had Softest crash on them and they ended up having to handwrite their exams. I'd had my own nightmare first year. My contracts exam got screwed up after I had already submitted it. They told me I would have to rewrite the entire exam. That's 4 hours of an exam that I had already written - that I would have to do again. Luckily for me, they managed to recover a backed-up version of it - but it had my last frantic entries missing. The price you pay for stupid Softest.

And stories about Softest crashing and screwing everything up abound everywhere. It is a faulty product on a faulty system (Windows).

As for the actual exam? It was a curveball. I was looking fastball and the exam dropped right under my swing. First, the professor told us it was 3 hours and not to worry about it. Then he apparently changed it at the last minute and made it four hours. And made it impossible.

Oh well, enough ranting... time to study for evidence.