Summary

Many users exploit a simple reload hack to retry quizzes without penalty — they start a quiz, guess some answers, and if things go wrong, simply reload before submitting. This clears progress and lets them retake the same quiz until they get a perfect score. Around 20% of participants seem to use this method.

⚠️ Problem Impact

• Inflates scores on the leaderboard.
• Undermines fair play and the credibility of results.
• Makes prize draws less meaningful.
• Reduces motivation for honest players.

🎯 Goal

Prevent page reloads from giving a “free retry.”
If a user reloads, their attempt should either be auto-submitted or treated as a retake with a penalty.

💡 Implementation Direction

We don’t want to over-engineer this, but one of these simple approaches would be enough:

1. Silent Penalty on Reload

   • When the user reloads mid-quiz, treat that as a retake and apply a hidden penalty (for example, deduct points or mark as n-th attempt).
   • Users wouldn’t see a message — just notice their score isn’t as high as expected.
   • Keeps the experience playful while discouraging reloads.

2. Auto-Submit on Each Answer

   • Submit partial results to the server after every answered question.
   • If the user reloads, the backend already holds a record of their attempt.
   • Reloading then simply starts a new attempt with the previous score already stored.

In both cases, any reload becomes effectively a retake instead of a way to erase mistakes.

🧠 Behavior Example

1. User starts quiz → answers 5 questions.

2. Reloads the page.

3. Backend finds existing score:

   • Option 1 → marks as retake, applies hidden penalty.
   • Option 2 → restores or restarts quiz with existing score logged.

4. Final results reflect honest first tries, not brute-force retries.

✅ Benefits

• Makes reload abuse pointless without breaking normal play.
• Keeps leaderboard fair and transparent.
• Requires minimal logic change — no major backend complexity.
• Still allows honest users to reload if needed (they’ll just start fresh or keep prior progress).

This change keeps the quiz fun and fair while gently punishing “creative” reload strategies.