What counts as a correction
A correction is a change to something that was wrong or genuinely misleading. It is not the same as an edit.
- Corrections: an answer key that was wrong, an explanation that taught the wrong rule, a stated exam fact that is out of date, a question ambiguous enough that two readings are both defensible.
- Not corrections: typos, punctuation, formatting, a layout that broke on one browser, or rewording something for clarity that was already accurate.
The distinction matters because corrections are recorded and edits are not. If everything counted, the record would fill up with comma changes and stop being useful for the thing it exists for.
How fast, and in what order
Not every error does the same amount of damage, so they are not treated identically.
| Severity | What it covers | Handling |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching the wrong thing | A wrong answer key. An explanation stating a rule incorrectly. A wrong pass mark, question count or time limit. | Ahead of everything. Confirmed and corrected immediately, or the item is withdrawn while it is checked. These are the errors that send someone into an exam believing something false. |
| Unclear or ambiguous | An explanation that does not explain. A question two competent people would answer differently. A rule stated nationally where it varies locally. | Normal queue. Usually resolved by rewriting the explanation or widening it to name the variation, rather than by changing the answer. |
| Cosmetic | Typos, formatting, broken links, display problems. | Fixed whenever noticed. Not logged as corrections and they do not move a review date. |
A report that names the track, the test and the question number can usually be resolved the same day, because identifying the item is most of the work. A report saying a test contains mistakes cannot be acted on at all, however right it may be.
What happens to a report
The five outcomes
- Corrected. The key was wrong, or the explanation was. It is fixed.
- Reworded. The answer was right and the question was not clear enough. The wording changes, the key does not.
- Widened. The rule genuinely varies by state or county. The explanation names the variation rather than flipping the answer, because both readings are correct somewhere and flipping it just moves the error to different people.
- Retired. A standard has moved past the question, or it cannot be salvaged. It comes out of circulation rather than being patched into something worse.
- No change. The content holds. The reason is recorded, and often the explanation is improved anyway.
No change is a real outcome, not a brush-off. Some reports are a difference of reading rather than an error, and a policy where every report must produce an edit would degrade the questions over time. It would also make us easy to push around by anyone confident enough to keep asking.
Your past attempts are not rescored
If a question you answered is later corrected, the attempt you already completed stays as it was. It is a record of what happened at the time rather than a live document, and we do not go back and change scores.
We could rescore, and have chosen not to. A recalculated history would mean your attempt records shifted quietly under you, which makes comparing two attempts weeks apart meaningless, and that comparison is the most useful thing an attempt history offers.
The practical cost of this is small. Nothing here feeds an official result, no certificate depends on it, and retakes are unlimited, so a corrected question costs you a mark on one practice attempt and nothing else. The corrected version is what you meet next time.
What we will not do
- Delete a question to avoid deciding about it. Withdrawing an item is a recorded decision with a reason, not a way of making an awkward report go away.
- Change an answer because someone insisted. Reports are checked against the source. Persistence is not evidence, and a site that edits under pressure ends up reflecting whoever complains loudest.
- Move a review date without doing the review. Covered in full in our review policy. A date that has moved means the checking happened.
- Correct one instance and leave the rest. If a wrong fact appears in several places, they are found and fixed together. Fixing only the one that was reported is how a site ends up disagreeing with itself.
How to report something
The correction form is the fastest route and asks for exactly what is needed to check a claim.
- The page URL, copied from the address bar.
- The track, and the test name or number.
- The question number, if it happened inside an attempt.
- What you think is right, and why.
- A source, if you have one. Reports naming a source are looked at first, because they turn a judgement call into a check that takes minutes.
You do not need all of it. Send what you have rather than waiting until you can fill in everything.
Where this falls short
- We do not publish a public corrections log. Corrections are recorded internally and reflected in review dates. If you want to know whether a specific question changed and why, ask and we will tell you.
- Most reports get no individual reply. The response is the fixed page. That is efficient and it is also less satisfying than being answered, which is a real cost we accept rather than pretend away.
- Errors nobody reports can sit for a long time. Scheduled review catches drift better than it catches something wrong from the day it was written. That gap is why reader reports matter as much as they do.