Exam page tools: calculator, Excel scratchpad, question paper, special characters

Modified on Mon, 8 May, 2023 at 12:06 PM

Exam page tools

For: candidates

Your institute decides which tools appear in each exam. If you don't see a tool described here, it is not enabled for your exam.

Tools at a glance

Tool	How to use it
Instructions (i) icon	Opens the exam instructions at any time during the exam.
Calculator	Click Calculator. If the advanced calculator is enabled, switch between Basic and Advanced.
Scratch Pad (Excel)	Click Scratch Pad for a spreadsheet with formula bar, cells and fill handle. See formulas below.
Question paper (QP)	If your institute attached a question paper or document, click the QP icon at the bottom-right to open it.
Special Characters	In subjective answers, click Special Characters in the editor toolbar to insert maths and other symbols.
Clear Response	Removes your answer for the current question. You are asked to confirm first.
Sections	Use the section tabs, or the sections dropdown next to them, to move between sections.
Full Screen	Use the full-screen icon to enter full screen. Some exams require full screen — if you leave it, the exam is locked until you restore full screen.
File upload answers	Each file must be greater than 0 bytes and less than 10 MB.

Section-wise exams

On the last question of a section, Save & Next asks you to confirm before moving on.
Once you finish a section you cannot go back to it.
Unused time in a section is not added to later sections — it is removed from the main timer.

Excel Scratch Pad formulas

Type formulas the same way as in a spreadsheet, for example =SUM(A1:A10). An invalid formula shows an error in that cell only. The Scratch Pad works in live and practice/demo tests. Along with the common spreadsheet functions, these are supported:

Group	Formulas
Lookup	VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, LOOKUP
Descriptive statistics	MEDIAN, MODE, MODE.SNGL, MODE.MULT, QUARTILE, QUARTILE.INC, QUARTILE.EXC
Spread	STDEV, STDEV.S, STDEV.P, VAR, VAR.S, VAR.P, STANDARDIZE
Correlation & regression	CORREL, PEARSON, COVAR, COVARIANCE.P, COVARIANCE.S, SLOPE, INTERCEPT, LINEST, SUMPRODUCT
Distributions	NORMDIST, NORMINV, NORMSDIST, NORMSINV (and NORM. forms), POISSON, BINOMDIST
Hypothesis testing	TTEST, T.TEST, ZTEST, Z.TEST

Blocked keys

These keys and shortcuts are blocked on the exam page. Pressing them shows a short warning message for 2–3 seconds; in a normal exam you are not removed from the exam.

Blocked
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+P, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+U
Ctrl+Shift+I, Ctrl+Shift+J, F12
Windows / Cmd key, Print Screen, Shift+Insert

Exception: in a Skill Assessment, pressing Ctrl / Cmd or any shortcut is logged as a security violation and immediately exits the test to the Resume page (answers and remaining time are saved). See Taking a Skill Assessment. In the Secure Exam App, Alt+F4 and F1–F12 are also blocked.

Still stuck? Email [email protected] with your roll number, the exam name, your device and browser, and a screenshot of the message. You can also connect over phone. If your exam is running, contact your institute or proctor first.