Last Monday, after spending about a month studying daily in the train to work, I went and took the 070-536 exam at New Horizons testing center, in Rotterdam Alexander. I was nervous because there are a lot of topics covered in this test that I’ve never ever used, since I’m focused more on web applications. After 45’ minutes and 40 questions, I had succeeded! The popup window congratulated me and notified me that I had a scored 838 points, while the base is 700. Then I clicked next and that’s when it all started.

I got an error popup window saying something like “Please contact Global Help Desk”. I clicked the only available button in the window, “OK”, and then the screen went blank showing only the mouse pointer which had turned into the hourglass. Convincing myself that this has to be normal, after all I studied so hard and why should this happen to me in the first place, I went to the reception to get my test results. Which of course, weren’t there. The receptionist asked me if I had hit “Print” and I explained the situation. We went together back at the testing room where she tried a few tricks to send the results to the printer but she couldn’t. She told me to call Prometric and verify that the test results got sent to their servers.

I went home and called Prometric around 12 o clock. They told me that the results are sent with a 24 hour delay so I should call back tomorrow.

On Tuesday morning, I called again and they were surprised that they hadn’t received anything. They told me that they would call the testing center (New Horizons) to investigate.

On Wednesday morning, I called once more and I spoke with a different person who said that test results are actually updated every 48 hours. He also noticed that on Tuesday the incident was noted with the central offices of Prometric at the USA, so they will investigate. He told me that this takes about 3 business days, so if I haven’t heard from them by Friday, I should give them a call.

This is Friday afternoon and I just got off the phone with Prometric. I spoke with the same person I spoke on Wednesday, but his response was quite interesting this time. The testing center New Horizons at Rotterdam Alexander had gone bankrupt ( ! ) on the same day I took the exam. So, the person who normally sends in the results, wasn’t there to do it. They’re trying to figure out a way of getting those results from the bankrupt test center… assuming that they got stored locally in the first place.

I visited the Prometric web site again and I don’t see New Horizons in Rotterdam Alexander listed anymore in the test centers so I guess this guy was telling the truth and I’ve hit the one in a million situation.

Now I have to call them back again on Monday to see if they have any news. He told me that there are 35 more candidates that day that have the same problem. He was also kind enough to inform me that if I will have to take the test again, Prometric will pay the costs.