devarim

I wrote this out for a friend who is taking the Massachusetts Bar Exam this month, but took her Bar/Bri simulated exam at another location. My simulated exam was held at the World Trade Center in Boston, where the actual test will be, and I figured this report on the testing environment might be helpful to anyone else out there who is taking the Mass bar and has not been to the test site. For non-Cornellians (inasmuch as I can communicate with you at all), "Barton Hall" is a very, very large atheletic building on Cornell's campus I'm not sure how large. Just...very.

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OK, test room....they had half of it closed off for us, but said that the day of the test the entire room will be set up, but there will also be more people there. The room was huge...not the exact dimensions of Barton Hall but probably about that size in total square footage. today's setup had four looooooooooooooong rows of about 50 tables each, where each "table" was really two folding tables set end-to-end with four people sitting on each side. The Bar/Bri guy said that the day of the test we will all be facing the front of the room...I'm still not 100% clear how many people will be at each table in that scenario,

The room was, as I said, quite chilly. It was not quite enough to make me want gloves and earmuffs, but I was certainly glad I had a flannel shirt to put over my T-shirt. I suggest bringing/wearing three layers of clothing (you may want to put one under your butt or behind your back instead of wearing it) and under no circumstances---except possibly the sudden swelling of your foot to three times its normal size--should you wear sandals. The floor is some kind of hard cement stuff, so we were told not to wear hard-soled shoes or heels.

There was a distinct buzzing/humming from the lights throughout the exam. Outside the left wall (while facing front, entrance in the back) there was the occasional sound of loud trucks rumbling by. The massive air conditioner started and stop several times...I never really noticed it starting, but there was a clear change in the sound level when it stopped. None of these sounds bothered me personally, but if you are the total-silence-with-earplugs type, you should keep this iin mind.

The women's bathroom in the BACK of the hall (entrance side) has six stalls and three sinks. IIRC, the sinks were of the two-handles-that-you-turn variety as opposed to the push-down-for-water variety. The soap had a vaguely beachy-sunscreeny smell to it. Bathroom was clean. One stall (at least) ran out of paper by the last half-hour of the morning exam. The stalls I used did not have toilet seat covers or even toilet seat cover dispensers. Also, around half an hour before the end of the morning session, there was a line for the bathroom.

The women's bathroom in the FRONT of the hall (opposite the entrance, and where the podium was set up today) has nine stalls and six sinks. These sinks are of the single control push-on-auto-off variety, though the temperature of the water was adjustable. The stall I used had a full toilet seat cover dispenser and no apparently toilet paper supply problems.

I walked around outside a little during the lunch break. Clear though not very strong scent in the air of fish and saltwater. There appeared to be adequate outdoor benches as well as a (not very large) mostly-glass-enclosed apparently public atrium in another building in the complex (go across the street and down toward the water). As for outdoor locations, most looked like they would not be in the shade (today was very cloudy here, so I couldn't tell).