Questions come in three kinds: one correct option, several correct options, and a written answer. The first two are scored by the server. The third is scored by nobody but a person.
What happens to the attempt
The student submits. The server scores the closed questions, records the finishing time — and stops there: "passed" and "failed" both stay empty on an attempt that contained written answers.
That is not a delay or a bug. "Passed" means somebody read the answer and agreed with it, not that arithmetic over the multiple-choice part came out above a line.
The student sees such an attempt counted separately, as "awaiting review". Silence in that place would read as "failed", and that would be untrue.
Where the queue lives
The review queue opens from Tests and exams, from the menu next to the heading. It holds every closed attempt in the school that still needs a verdict, oldest first.
A separate list exists for one reason: otherwise such work sits for months inside a question set that nobody opens twice a year. Only the top row of the queue is highlighted — the thing to do now is the one that has waited longest, and twenty equally loud "Review" buttons say nothing except that there is a lot of work.
Next to each attempt stand the stream and the student, so that from a piece of work you walk to the group and the person instead of going back to the sidebar.
Giving a verdict
1Open the attempt from the queue. You see the whole thing: what was asked, what the student wrote, what the server already scored.
2Mark each written answer accepted or not, and add a short comment where it helps. The student sees that comment in the breakdown — it is the reason they open the breakdown at all.
3Save. The attempt gets its result, the student gets an answer, and a set with certificates switched on now has grounds to issue one.
Teachers and above may review. Students never see anyone else's attempts.
When the student sees the answers
The breakdown with correct answers appears only after an attempt has finished — and not because the portal is hiding it: while an attempt runs, the server does not send correct answers at all.
There is also the case where an attempt has finished and the key is still closed, because the student has attempts left. Showing the answers then would be handing them the next one. In that case the screen says so, once, next to the result.
An empty queue
An empty review queue is good news, and the portal writes it as news: everything is marked, nothing is hanging. It is the rare empty list that needs no apology.