CBT disruption at three centres: cancel, adjust or re-test?
A bank-wide online recruitment test for 12,400 candidates was held across 84 centres using a single question paper. Server disconnects affected three centres, causing losses of 6 to 11 minutes for 47 candidates, and the auto-submit fired for 5 of them at the 96th minute with roughly 20 questions unattempted. At 11:40 a.m., a social-media post displayed a screenshot of a question, claiming the paper was circulating. Server and item-exposure logs show no external access, and the screenshot appears to be of an item already attempted by most candidates in that slot. The results team can produce candidate-level response data and per-item timing. A candidates' group has begun demanding a full re-examination, and a newspaper has called the bank's helpline. You are the Specialist Officer (Recruitment) who must put a recommendation to the examination committee tomorrow morning.
1. Should the examination be cancelled bank-wide, cancelled for the three centres, or retained with corrective action? Justify your choice.
Read the worked answer
Reasoning. Three separate questions must not be collapsed into one: (a) loss of examination time, (b) exposure of content, and (c) fairness across candidates.
- Content exposure: the logs show no external access and the screenshot post-dates the item being widely attempted. That is evidence of a candidate carrying a phone, not of a leak. A full cancellation on this basis would be disproportionate to 12,400 candidates and would itself be challenged.
- Time loss: this is a real, measurable disadvantage affecting 47 identified candidates, not the cohort.
Recommendation. Do not cancel the examination. Treat the 47 as a defined affected group, and give them a compensatory re-test on an equated paper, or credit the lost minutes pro-rata where the logs show unanswered items - whichever the committee's technical panel can validate. Separately pursue the mobile-phone breach at the specific centre under the unfair-means rules. Publish the reasoning so that the decision reads as rule-based rather than damage control.
2. What must be done for the five candidates whose tests auto-submitted with about 20 questions unattempted?
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Reasoning. These five are the hardest cases because their answer files are formally complete but substantively truncated. A blanket mark-up or a blanket re-test both carry risk: a mark-up may over-reward, a re-test may create an advantage.
Action plan.
- Pull the save-timestamp log for each of the five to establish exactly which items were displayed and when, and how much of the loss was system-side versus candidate-side.
- Give each a personal hearing with the grievance committee and a written record of what they say.
- Offer a re-test on a separately equated paper, with the rule fixed in advance and disclosed to all candidates: the better of the two scores counts, or the re-test alone counts - choose one and apply it uniformly.
- Do not allow any of the five to be considered for shortlisting until the re-test outcome is recorded.
- Keep the raw logs unaltered; the defensibility of the whole exercise rests on them.
3. How do you handle communication and the grievance process without conceding that the examination was compromised?
Read the worked answer
Reasoning. Silence is read as concealment, and over-explanation is read as an admission. The communication must be factual, narrow and dated.
Action plan.
- Issue a same-day factual notice: the examination was held; technical disruption occurred at three named centres; 47 candidates are affected; a redressal window of a stated number of days is open with a named nodal officer and a dedicated e-mail ID.
- Refer to the screenshot claim precisely - that an internal inquiry is under way and that no evidence of paper exposure has been found so far - rather than declaring an outcome prematurely.
- Brief the helpline staff with a written script so that no agent improvises a commitment.
- Respond to the newspaper with the same notice; do not add new claims.
- Close the loop publicly after the committee decision, including what was done for the 47 candidates. Deal with the media on facts, and let the committee minute carry the reasoning.