29 March 2025
Live from Saturday 29th March, lots of different parts of the product have had some magic dust sprinkled on them in this update.
Question filters in Quiz and Advance for students
Paving the way for the next big feature, “Goals” are some new question filters for students to use in Quiz and Advance mode. Just above the question students will now see, “Filters” with the option to exclude mastered questions or focus on incorrectly answered questions only.
In Advance, students can choose to see easy, medium or hard questions.
Smart mode will select the next question for the student based on their data. This is still the best option for everyday spaced and interleaved learning, but the increased flexibility will reduce the frustration that some students experience when the algorithms are in control!
Delete and add questions from a task for teachers
Teachers now have the option to delete and add individual questions when setting a task. Swapping one question for another has always been possible, but this new feature allows teachers to do so much more. Even manually creating a task by choosing every question you want. This is just the first iteration towards an even better interface allowing you to search and prioritise questions for selection. As a quick hack, remember that CTRL-F will allow you to “find in page” on most browsers. So, if you want to find a question about sorting, try finding “sort” for example. Just remember you will need to have selected the relevant topics to see these questions.
Improved AI marking messages
Before this update Tasks that included questions that could not be marked by AI (no robot icon) reported that marking was complete once AI had finished doing what it could. Now, if your task does include questions that are not markable by AI, or it trips up during the marking process, it will report, “AI Complete (you to mark)”. A teacher, the student or a peer can then complete the marking for those remaining questions.
Please do bear in mind that AI marking is not 100% accurate. That’s one reason why Ofqual have said that exam boards cannot use AI marking for real examinations. It is getting better all the time, but it is unrealistic to expect it to be perfect. Unlike classic algorithms that are deterministic, AI algorithms are probabilistic. They also hallucinate and the content at GCSE and A level is often abstracted for the level of study, so this is an added complication too.
Tab navigation on desktop
Using tab on the keyboard will now navigate sensibly around the page. We still recommend you use a mouse or touch wherever possible, but this is a useful accessibility option.
Bug fix: difference in data between CSV & analytics reports on-screen
Due to rounding errors sometimes the downloadable data from the analytics reports was different to what could be downloaded as a CSV file. This has now been corrected so that the data is consistent no matter how you choose to view it.
Exploit fix: students can no longer assign negative marks to an answer
If you want to fully test your product, put it into the hands of your students. They always seem to find something that we just hadn’t thought of! It transpires that by manipulating the client-side code students were able to input negative numbers into the “mark” box, giving themselves (or a peer) a negative mark for a question. We have now patched this with more server-side validation.
Rebranding
We are slowly migrating all our resources to a new look, and that includes Smart Revise. Nothing major here. A new image on the landing page and each page header but it helps to tie all our products together.
You can get started with free students and teacher accounts today for an unlimited time with no features locked. The only thing that is limited is the number of topics. Take a closer look at what Smart Revise can do: Smart Revise – The course companion that raises attainment and reduces workload
