What do I do if an exam freezes or a candidate needs a new device?
Step-by-step fixes for a frozen exam, most of which come down to the connection, plus how to move a candidate to another device.
Most freezes come down to a poor network connection rather than a problem with the exam itself. If something is genuinely wrong on our side, we will already have flagged it.
Work through the following:
- Confirm exactly what is happening. What does frozen mean here? Can the candidate see text? Is it that the next page will not load, or the current question will not load? One common cause is a question that asks the candidate to select more than one answer: they may think they cannot move on until they have, so check this first.
- Ask the candidate to refresh the page.
- If that does not help, move them to a different device, ideally somewhere with a stable connection.
- Where possible, pause the assessment before switching, close the current device, and open the assessment on the new one.
As above, we cannot add time to an exam, so if a substantial amount of time has been lost, we recommend restarting the current paper.