The CBT exam engine: how per-student random question draws prevent copying

Structural anti-copying without proctoring hardware. How Terma generates unique exam sets from a shared question pool.

The most common objection to computer-based testing in secondary schools is a legitimate one: if every student is sitting in the same room with the same exam on screen, it is easier to cheat than on paper. Terma's CBT engine addresses this at the question draw level — before the exam begins. Every assessment draws from a question bank. When an exam begins, each student does not receive the same paper. The engine draws a unique set of questions for every student from the pool — matched to the same topic distribution and difficulty spread as every other student's paper, but in a different selection. Two students sitting side by side will have different question 1, different question 2, and a different total paper. Copying a neighbour's answer to question 7 will, most of the time, answer a different question on your own paper. This structural approach to anti-copying does not require proctoring hardware. The difficulty of copying is built into the format of the exam. This is how Terma approaches academic integrity: not as a surveillance problem, but as a design problem.