I just bombed a VI for a spring vac scheme because I was caught off guard by how long the questions were. For each question here were essentially two subquestions (e.g. why commercial law + skills needed by a commercial lawyer and how you've demonstrated them) but I had to fit my answer within 1 min 30 sec which I found near impossible so I panicked. Kept stumbling over my own words and towards the end it was just word vomit which made no sense because it was the last 10 seconds. It wasn't even the questions that caught me off guard (they were really simple questions), it was just because there were two huge questions that needed answering in 1 min 30 secs which completely threw me off.
I'm just feeling disheartened because I attended an open day at the firm and spent so much time crafting a strong written application but I know 100% that I will not be progressed to AC because of my VI.
If you're struggling with VIs too, you're not alone

hopefully we will get there one day.