CBT Platform Administration 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A CBT administrator needs to restrict test-takers from accessing external websites during an exam. Which tool is most commonly used to accomplish this?
- Antivirus software
- Secure Browser or browser lockdown application (Correct answer)
- Firewall rule on the candidate's PC
- VPN client
Correct answer: Secure Browser or browser lockdown application
A secure/lockdown browser disables navigation to external sites and prevents access to other applications during testing.
Question 2: When configuring a CBT platform for high-stakes certification exams, which authentication method provides the strongest candidate identity verification?
- Username and password only
- Single-factor SMS code
- Multi-factor authentication combined with biometric or photo ID check (Correct answer)
- IP address whitelisting
Correct answer: Multi-factor authentication combined with biometric or photo ID check
Multi-factor authentication paired with biometric or government-issued ID verification provides the highest assurance of candidate identity.
Question 3: An administrator observes that a test delivery server's CPU usage spikes to 100% at scheduled exam start times. What is the most appropriate long-term solution?
- Restart the server before each exam window
- Implement load balancing across multiple servers (Correct answer)
- Reduce the number of questions per exam
- Disable logging during peak times
Correct answer: Implement load balancing across multiple servers
Load balancing distributes concurrent user connections across multiple servers, preventing CPU bottlenecks at peak launch times.
Question 4: Which log type is most valuable when investigating a candidate's claim that their exam session was unexpectedly terminated?
- Web server access log
- Application event/session log (Correct answer)
- Network SNMP trap log
- Database slow-query log
Correct answer: Application event/session log
Application session logs record session start, timeout events, errors, and termination reasons, directly addressing disconnection claims.
Question 5: A CBT platform administrator wants to ensure exam content cannot be reconstructed from network traffic. Which control best achieves this?
- Disabling browser caching
- Enforcing TLS encryption on all data in transit (Correct answer)
- Using HTTP instead of HTTPS
- Storing questions only in RAM
Correct answer: Enforcing TLS encryption on all data in transit
TLS encrypts all data transmitted between the delivery server and the candidate's browser, preventing interception of exam content.
Question 6: Before a major exam administration window, an administrator performs a full backup of the test platform database. What backup strategy ensures the least data loss if a failure occurs mid-exam?
- Weekly full backups only
- Daily full backups with hourly transaction log backups
- Monthly full backups with daily incremental
- Real-time database replication to a standby server (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Real-time database replication to a standby server
Real-time replication to a standby server provides near-zero data loss (RPO) because changes are mirrored continuously.
Question 7: A testing center reports that candidates using assistive technology (screen readers) cannot start their exams. What is the first administrative step to resolve this?
- Reschedule all affected candidates
- Verify the secure browser version supports accessibility APIs such as MSAA or IA2 (Correct answer)
- Disable the secure browser for those candidates
- Reinstall the operating system
Correct answer: Verify the secure browser version supports accessibility APIs such as MSAA or IA2
Most accessibility failures with secure browsers stem from incompatibility with OS-level accessibility APIs, so verifying version support is the first diagnostic step.
CBT Platform Administration 2
A CBT administrator needs to restrict test-takers from accessing external websites during an exam.
Which tool is most commonly used to accomplish this?