u/Absurdity-Every-Day

An internal posting for a job I'm considering has the new OPM short essay questions built into the application. It says 'responses are not required and will not be scored', however, one cannot submit an application without providing text in the boxes.

Without getting into it on 'why not just answer the questions?'.... does anyone know if applications are getting through without providing answers, i.e. putting in a period to trick the webpage to allow the submission?