Why are XMR shares also generated during the QXMR cycle?

This happens because the current QXMR nonce space, when evenly distributed across 10,000 miners, becomes very limited and can be quickly exhausted.

Although each QXMR template lasts about 8 seconds, high-hashrate miners may complete their assigned nonce space in just 5 seconds. For the remaining time, they would either perform redundant computations (wasting resources) or switch to more productive work.

Apool chooses the latter: during this idle period before the next QXMR template arrives, miners are redirected to work on XMR tasks. This strategy ensures better hardware utilization and helps maximize miners' overall earnings.