Patent ID: 9704410
Date: 2017-07-11
CPC Classifications: G09B

Claim:
1. A method for administering tests at a computer terminal in communication with a remote location, the method comprising: associating an ability level with a category of questions with equal difficulty; wherein the ability level is based on a test taker's ability within the category of questions; establishing an initial threshold amount of unanswered questions that are pending, the initial threshold amount being a positive integer greater than one, representing a minimum number of answered questions to be resident on the computer terminal; sending to the computer terminal a first batch of questions that exceeds the initial threshold amount, the batch of questions having a substantially equal ability level; receiving an answer to one of the batch of questions; updating the ability level based on the answer to one of the number of questions; selecting, based on the ability level update, a new question having an ability level different than the one of the number of questions; sending the new question to the computer terminal; pre-fetching new questions from the remote location until the initial threshold amount is exceeded; and deferring application of the ability level update until the initial threshold amount is exceeded.