Test Case

Right after that classic nightmare of having forgotten to study for the exam comes the horrific vision of taking the test only to have the answer sheet lost. Last week in New York City the vision became reality. Portions of 542 New York bar examinations, which for the would-be lawyers who had just taken them were the culmination of years of graduate study, disappeared from the state board of law examiners' offices. The deeply abashed three-member board alerted police and quickly notified the unlucky 542 out of the 6,562 tested. "There is no way to express how wretched we all feel about this thing," Law Examiner John E. Holt-Harris Jr. told the New York Times. The board is offering various ways to take part or all of a new test. The 542 aspirants are stunned. Three phoned a Long Island lawyer to inquire about a possible class action. Said Candidate Ronald Korybski: "Who wants to study all that again?" The answer is nobody. Still unanswered: Were the tests lost, or were they stolen to force a rerun by some unprepared victim of that other nightmare?