Today was the e-EQE Pre-Exam. If you want to try yourself, see here for main copy with EN printable parts, and the printable parts in German and in French. Sorry – it is a bit of a mess, but the pages produced by LockDown Browser seem to be a little unpredictable. I also deleted the T/F answers, so you will not be influenced.
I have not made the paper yet, but check the Telegram groups for some discussions and comments.
- A number found it more difficult than exams of previous years
- Having DE, EN, FR below each other is not so nice for reading, especially with claim sets and comparing with questions
1. Telegram chat groups
- The main group has 230 members, for general issues and WISEflow + LockDown Browser + Zendesk issues. The (ABC+PE claims analysis) group has 102 members, the (D+PE legal) group has 97 members, and the summer study group for EQE 2022 preparation already has 57 members.
- Mainly for students to discuss with others, but also open to any tutors.
- If you have just done an exam, only discuss the answers if you can really take it. For most people, it is better not to discuss – you can’t change your answer, no-one knows what the marking will be for particular answers (Main Exam) and sometimes more than one Pre-Exam answer is accepted.
- Group rules: no discussions of ways to cheat, no exchanges of large sections of copyrighted materials (excerpts, annotated examples, WIPO/EPO docs etc. are allowed), no requesting or sharing of exam materials until after the scheduled end of the last part of that exam, no requesting or sharing of invigilator password.
- Prior art documents were available 20 minutes before (as promised) 👍
- Own answers were available about 20 minutes after the scheduled end of the last part (as promised) 👍
3. Technical problems (Several reports of webcam issues)
- a) Screen partially black due to failure in starting LockDown Browser. Problem seen in Mock1, reported to helpdesk, moved to cable connection instead of WiFi which seemed to help.
- Contacted the invigilators and managed to enter Browser again using invigilator password after 20 min or so
- b) Laptop with external monitor and external webcam. All worked fine in the Mocks. Before Pre-Exam, entry photo was no problem. But during exam, contacted by Zendesk and told that his webcam only took black photos. Candidate deactivated laptop camera in device manager, but didn’t help and he got contacted again. Not sure how it was solved
- it seems likely that LockDown Browser later defaults back to camera selected automatically default in screen to take entry photo
- some suggested disabling internal webcam in software if you have this setup
- one tried unplugging USB plug of webcam and this helped
- c) Laptop with Win 10, external monitor and external webcam, laptop lid closed during exam, all screen savers, lock screens, energy saving modes etc turned off, privacy settings adjusted accordingly and webcam given full access to apps, including desktop apps. During system tests in Wiseflow, Mocks 2 & 3, no apparent problems,
- During Pre-Exam, entry photo successful. In Part 2, contacted via zendesk, and told that cam not working correctly. Could not solve issue, allowed to carry on. 30 mins before Part 3, in contact with technical expert => disabled integrated webcam of my laptop, did Part 3 without interruption. In part 4, contacted again as camera sending black photos, i.e. the same problem as before. It seems as if laptop and external webcam is a known problem. => opened lid, but no change. Allowed to complete Part 4.
- All invigilators very friendly and tried to help.👍 Still it cost a lot of nerves and time.
4. Invigilation
- Many positive reports that contact was made quickly 👍
- However sometimes delay (15 mins) when there was a technical issue, or when getting the invigilator password
- For refreshing Zendesk chat every 30 minutes, one candidate indicated that a refresh option will be visible on the chat when it can be done


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