Live Exam Updates allows administrators to make changes to exams in BluePrint after a course has been published without affecting the results of learners who have already completed those exams.
When enabled, completed exam attempts retain their original scores, questions, and answers, while learners who have not yet completed an exam receive the latest published exam content.
How Live Exam Updates Works
By default, publishing changes to an exam in a live course can affect previously completed attempts. For example, changing a correct answer may recalculate a learner's score, deleting a question may change the total number of questions, and adding a question may return a completed exam to a paused state.
With Live Exam Updates enabled, completed attempts retain their original results, even when exam content is modified.
| Exam Update | Default Behavior | With Live Exam Updates |
|---|---|---|
| Change a correct answer | Completed attempts may be rescored. | Original scores and results remain unchanged. |
| Delete a question | Scores and question totals are recalculated. | Original scores and question counts remain unchanged. |
| Add a question | Completed exams may return to a paused state. | Completed exams remain completed with their original scores. |
| Edit question, answer, or passage content | Updated content appears when reviewing an exam. | Learners can review the content as it appeared when they completed the exam. |
If a question is deleted after a learner completes an exam, it will still appear when the learner reviews their completed attempt, including the original question content and the answer they submitted.
Live Exam Updates also ensures that reporting and analytics continue to reflect the original scores, percentages, and question totals associated with completed attempts. Exam completion status and date, along with related content unlocking, assignment completion, and curriculum progress, also remain unchanged.
How Updates Affect Exam Attempts
The behavior of an exam update depends on the status of the learner's attempt.
| Exam Status | Behavior After an Update |
|---|---|
| Completed | Original scores, results, and exam review content remain unchanged. |
| Paused or In Progress | The attempt reflects the latest published exam content and is rescored. Saved answers remain for questions that still exist, while removed questions are not replaced. If a learner paused on a question that was subsequently deleted, they resume on the next available question. |
| Not Started | Learners receive the latest published exam content. |
| Reset After Completion | The new attempt uses the latest exam content. Previous results remain available if Previous Exam Score Reports is enabled. |
Live Exam Updates and Dynamic Exams
Live Exam Updates also applies to completed Dynamic Exam attempts.
When enabled:
- Questions: The original set of questions presented to the learner remains associated with their completed attempt, even if questions are subsequently removed from the question pool.
- Scores and completion: Original scores, question counts, and completion status remain unchanged.
- Exam review: Learners can review their completed exam, including questions that have since been deleted, as they originally appeared.
- Reset and retake: A new attempt draws questions from the current question pool, excluding any questions that have been removed.
Dynamic Exams that have not been started or are still in progress continue to follow their existing behavior when exam content is updated.
Enabling Live Exam Updates
Live Exam Updates is disabled by default and is managed by BenchPrep. The following two Feature Access settings must be enabled at the tenant level:
- Preserve Completed Exam Results
- Track Question Versions
To enable Live Exam Updates for your organization, contact your BenchPrep Customer Success Manager or BenchPrep Support.
Note: Previous Exam Score Reports is not required for Live Exam Updates. However, it can be enabled separately to allow learners to access earlier exam results after resetting an exam.
Important Considerations
- Previously completed attempts: Only exams completed after Live Exam Updates is enabled will retain their original results following subsequent changes. Enabling the feature does not restore results affected by earlier updates.
- Learner experience: The Learning Application does not display an indicator that Live Exam Updates is enabled or notify learners when exam content changes. Learners continue to access their exams and results as usual, based on the status of their attempt.
- Exam history: Live Exam Updates does not create a selectable history of exam versions in BluePrint. Instead, each completed attempt retains the content and results associated with that attempt.
- Coordinating updates: Consider publishing significant exam changes together on a planned date to make it easier to compare results before and after an update.
- Exams only: Live Exam Updates does not change how practice question activity is handled.
