In June 2025, Apple published a landmark study that has sent shockwaves through the AI and assessment communities. The research, titled The Illusion of Thinking, rigorously tested the reasoning abilities of the most advanced AI models—so-called large reasoning models (LRMs) from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others—using a series of classic logic puzzles designed to scale in complexity. The findings have profound implications for how we understand AI’s capabilities, especially in the context of educational assessment.

A bumper edition with THIRTEEN new posts - that takes us to well over 200 blog posts in total. This month we are looking forward to attending the international E Assessment Awards where we are a finalist in the most innovative solution category. As part of this we have created a new Innovation blog series which we will be adding to over the coming weeks.

In the rapidly evolving world of educational assessment, efficiency and innovation are no longer just buzzwords—they’re necessities. If you’re using RM Compare, you already know the power of Adaptive Comparative Judgement for delivering robust, scalable assessment. But what if you could take your productivity and creativity to the next level? Enter the Large Language Model (LLM).