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Why pausing removes the question

A small anti-cheat decision that turned out to matter more than we expected.

TP

The PebbleYard team

14/Jul/2026 · 3 min read

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The first version of the pause button did what pause buttons usually do: it stopped the clock and laid a panel over the question. It took one afternoon of watching children use it to see the problem. The question was still there, underneath, for as long as anyone wanted it to be.

Covering is not hiding

So the pause now unmounts the question rather than covering it. There is nothing behind the panel to read, and nothing in the page to inspect. Resuming re-renders it and restarts the clock where it stopped.

It is a small decision, and it is the first thing a school asks about once they hear the word “assessment”. Anti-cheat features are mostly credibility features: what they buy you is a teacher willing to use the score for something.

TP

Written by The PebbleYard team

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