Taking an exam on a laptop (CA bar)

I’m going to be taking the California bar exam in February, and there is an option to take the exam using your laptop using Examsoft software. I like the idea because I have grown accustomed to writing on a computer over the years, and my handwritten essays tend to get sloppy with insertions in the margins. On the other hand, the thought of my computer breaking down during the exam scares the hell out of me. I’m also thinking that the ability to edit easily is going to cause me to spend too much time on the questions. Anyone have any good or bad experiences taking tests on computers? Thanks.

Just took my first round of law school tests on a computer. We used a different software program, but I’m sure it works much the same. I was worried about the crashing issue, too, but the software we used saved automatically every 10 seconds or so, so there would at least be something to recover if a crash happened. I’m sure your software does something similar.

I found typing the test to be helpful for all the same reasons you’d rather type than hand-write anything else: you get to edit, you can move things around, it looks cleaner at the end… I highly recommend it.

One word of caution: visually confirm that the power cord for your computer is in your possession before you leave home. Right before your test is not the time to realize you left that on your desk at home…