Now that the turkey mania has settled and finals are on the horizon, many UCLA students will find themselves at the Community Programs Office test bank in the coming week, waiting in line and frantically trying to operate a mouse that resembles an eight ball.
UCLA’s test bank, which is located in the Student Activities Center, allows students to access past exams for their classes. Students must submit an old exam of their own in return for access to the exam files. First-year and incoming transfer students who have not yet taken any exams get a free pass for their first quarter.
While the concept sounds simple enough, the execution is a test in itself – a test of patience, that is.
Students who want to use the test bank must do so in person through same-day appointments. Right before their five-minute appointment times, they must submit their own exams to access one of the two test-bank kiosks.
The kiosk is quite the spectacle, though. It consists of a dated screen on a metal slab and a keyboard with a mouse that rolls instead of clicks, making the process more like trying to play an arcade game than printing an exam. UCLA is renowned for inventing the internet in the 1960s, but one might think the test-bank kiosk was the very computer researchers used.
Many students find it inconvenient to conduct everything in person and print within the allotted time frame on ancient kiosks they don’t know how to use. For some, the lack of communication on the test bank’s part keeps them from using the service entirely. CPO could fix this problem by providing a website with instructions on how to use the test bank and where students can see what tests they can access.
A key problem with the test bank is that there is no guarantee a professor’s exams are even available. Ricardo Vazquez, a UCLA spokesperson, said all exams submitted to the center must be original – rather than copies – and cannot be on CPO’s “do not accept list,” which consists of professors who have explicitly asked that their exams be excluded. A student might go through the entire appointment process only to find that no one has submitted an exam from the professor’s class they’re looking for.
For Alysia Garcia, a first-year physiology student, this is part of the reason she doesn’t use the service.
“It’s not worth it if I don’t know if the exam is even going to be there,” Garcia said.
She added she feels the process of making an appointment is also a hassle, and said she would opt to use her sorority’s online test bank instead.
To make matters worse, the test bank’s appointment slots fill up fast, meaning students have to get to the test bank between 9 and 10 a.m. if they want a chance at getting an appointment. This is especially problematic for commuters who might not be on campus during that time.
And making an appointment is just the first hurdle. The kiosk itself is a prehistoric relic that is difficult to navigate, let alone within a five-minute window.
Third-year microbiology student Ashley Yu said she struggled to use the test bank kiosk the first time she visited the center. She ended up only printing out one test because she did not have enough time to figure out how to operate the kiosk and sift through the poorly categorized exams to find what she was looking for.
Derek Lee, a second-year bioengineering student, also agrees that the test bank is disorganized.
“It’s pretty daunting, actually,” Lee said. “You’re given five minutes and people start yelling at you and you’re just trying to learn the system – and by the time you figure it out, your time’s already up.”
Luckily, CPO seems to recognize these concerns and is working with Student Affairs Information Technology to move the test bank to an iPad system, Vazquez said. This would enable the test bank to triple the number of students it can accommodate daily, and eventually allow students to upload old exams and make appointments online.
The problem is CPO expects to have the iPad system running by the end of winter quarter – an eternity away.
While CPO is implementing the system, the test bank could further simplify its operation by providing a website where first-time users can find instructions on how to operate the kiosk and a list of professors whose exams are in the test bank.
In the meantime, CPO should consider extending appointment times. While setting a time limit makes sense to maximize the number of appointments, the five minutes students are given does not take into account figuring out how to operate the kiosk and can oftentimes end up being insufficient to even print one test.
While it is understandable why the test bank must be monitored, it is in everyone’s best interest to provide information about how to operate the service and its availability – the bare minimum to prevent students from being too confused to even use the test bank.
After all, we would expect no less from the birthplace of the internet.