Custom Practice is an alternative question-taking experience that allows learners to design practice sessions that cover exactly–and only–what they want to practice. Using Custom Practice, a learner can control:

 

• How many questions they’ll attempt within one session
• How much time they’ll have to answer these questions 
• Which question category or categories they’ll practice 
• How difficult the questions they attempt will be 
• Whether they attempt new questions or re-attempt questions they previously answered incorrectly 

 

 

Learners access Custom Practice via the Practice section of their course(s). You can enable Custom Practice alongside the default question-taking experience in the BenchPrep platform (called Category Practice), or enable Custom Practice instead of Category Practice. If a set of practice questions is a Study Task in the course’s Structured Study Plan, learners will use Custom Practice to complete the question set. 

 

 

 

Custom Practice is a self-serve feature that any Admin can turn on or off at the tenant, course, and institution/branch levels.

 

Custom Practice Feature Considerations 

 

Enabling Custom Practice can impact functionality in other learning modules if they are being used:

 

• Custom Practice sessions will hide related connections in Table of Contents and individual Lessons
• While a custom practice is in session (which includes paused sessions) category practice cannot be used. Questions will appear as locked within the category practice page and within the study plan
• Similarly, relevant practice questions Study Tasks will appear locked. After the custom practice session is submitted they are available again.

 

Learn more about Using Custom Practice here.

 

Before enabling the Custom Practice feature for live learners, we highly recommend testing the feature in your staging environment first to fully understand its powerful impact on the learner's experience and decide if this feature is right for your learners. 

 

 

Because the feature affects data it should not be toggled ON/OFF ad hoc, especially in courses with live learners.

 

 

Enabling, then subsequently disabling custom practice can lead to:

• The learner’s study plan progress, knowledge points acquired and next study tasks may change
• Progress and performance data shown in custom and category practice might change

 

Review Comparing Custom Practice to Category Practice article to learn more about the differences between both practice question experiences.

 

Category Practice

 

Category Practice is the BenchPrep platform’s default question-taking experience. In this mode, learners attempt questions within one category (or subcategory) at a time. This is the main variable learners control–in Category Practice, learners cannot add a time limit to their practice session or control the difficulty level of the questions they attempt.

 

 

Learners access Category Practice via the Practice section of their course(s). Category Practice is enabled by default and controllable at the tenant and course levels. To turn off Category Practice, reach out to your BenchPrep contact.

 

Comparing Custom Practice to Category Practice

 

Custom and Category Practice are the two question-taking experiences available to learners in the Practice section of a course. Category Practice allows learners to practice questions by category or subcategory, while Custom Practice allows learners to design their own practice session using specific parameters (number of questions, question difficulty, etc.). A course can offer both Custom and Category Practice, and learners can switch between the two modes as desired. 

 

Custom and Category Practice use a shared question pool - a question already answered via Category Practice will not appear in the pool of available, unanswered questions while setting up a custom practice session. Likewise, a question answered during a custom practice session will only be available in Category Practice after being reset. Learn more about resetting behavior here. 

 

Both modes offer unique advantages to learners. The following table demonstrates what features are available in Custom and Category Practice:

 

	Custom Practice	Category Practice
Filter questions by category	✔	✔
Filter questions by subcategory		✔
Attempt questions within different categories during the same practice session	✔
Control how many questions the learner attempts in one practice session	✔	✔
Show learners how much time they spend in a single practice session	✔	✔
Add a time limit to the practice session	✔
Show learners the difficulty level of each question	✔	✔
Control the difficulty level of the questions the learner attempts	✔
Reset and retake questions	✔	✔
ONLY attempt questions the learner previously answered incorrectly	✔
Randomize order of questions	✔	✔
Use highlights, notes, bookmarks, Confidence Levels, a calculator, and other tools to answer questions	✔	✔
Skip questions		✔
Available on mobile devices and via native mobile apps	✔	✔
Compatible with Structured and Adaptive Study Plans	✔	✔