GENERAL INFORMATION
When typing your questions do not be concerned if a word breaks at the end
of a line and then continues at the begining of the next line, it will print
out correctly on paper. If a word ends at the end of a line you must start the
next line with a space. Use an "at" sign @ to mark the beginning of every
paragraph except the first one.
You may wish to separate questions from different units with blank questions, that way you may enter additional questions later. Blank questions are ignored when printing.
If the question contains a "fill-in-the-blank" dashed line there must be a space at both ends of the dashed line, otherwise the preceeding word, the dashed line, and the following word will be treated as one long word.
Text in square brackets "[ ]" is invisible. You can search for it but it won't be printed. [Unit 11] could mark the start of a group.
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
Enter your questions like the sample in figure 3. Questions may have up to
five parts; the question, one to twenty multiple choice answers, up to eight
alternate correct answers, a footnote and a reference. Answers, footnotes and
references are optional.
A triangle, in which all three sides are the same length, has corner s that are at an angle of _____ degrees each. A} 20 Degrees B} 30 de grees C} 40 Degrees D} 45 Degrees E} 60 Degrees::All three angles of a triangle must add up to 180 degrees. FITB 60*SIXTY*SIXTY DEGREES GEOMETRY.TXT] [MAN.#RDF-43 pp. 213.REF] |
Correct answer. (E) Scramble. A-(E) Essay answer lines. 0-9 ( ) |
127. A triangle, in which all three sides are the same length has corners
that are at an angle of _____ degrees each.
A) 20 Degrees B) 30 Degrees C) 40 Degrees D) 45 Degrees E) 60 Degrees |
To split your text into questions, answers, footnotes, and references you must identify them.
If the question is multiple choice, the answers should be typed immediately
following the question using these rules;
1. There may be one to twenty answers lettered A-T.
2. Each answer must be preceeded by an answer identifier consisting of a
space ( ), the answer letter A-T, and a curvy bracket }. Therefore the only
valid answer identifiers are A}, B}, C}, D}.... T}, etc., each preceded by a
space.
3. Answer identifiers must be in alphabetical order and uppercase.
4. True/False answers should be entered like this;
If you enter multiple choice answers and essay lines, then the multiple choice answers will be ignored and only the lines will be printed.
If you wish to print a "correct answer" sheet after printing a test, or if you wish to use a question in a computer given quiz, you must indicate the correct answer for each question. Press [ENTER] or [RETURN] to move the cursor to the "Correct answer. ( )" location and enter the letter of the correct answer.
You may wish to create several versions of the same test by scrambling the answers. For example on one version the answers would appear like this;
A) Pancakes B) Ham & Eggs C) Toast D) None of these E) All of these |
A) Ham & Eggs B) Toast C) Pancakes D) None of these E) All of these |
If you do not wish the answers for a particular question to be scrambled even though you select to have the answers for other questions scrambled then change the line to "Scramble. A-(A)" or "Scramble. A-()".
If you wish all the answers to be scrambled, enter the letter of the last answer for that question, ie. if the question has 3 answers, enter C, if it has 5 answers enter E.
If you choose to print a scrambled test it will be numbered. If you then choose to print a teacher's correct answer sheet, it will print an answer sheet for each version of the test, numbered to match the numbered tests.
ESSAY QUESTIONS
Essay questions can only appear on a printed test or an HTML internet quiz,
not a personal computer quiz.
To make a question an essay type on an HTML internet quiz see here. To make a question an essay type on a printed test just fill in the "Essay answer lines. 0 - 9" space, the program will print the number of lines you request after printing the question. If a question has both multiple choice answers and you have filled in the "Essay answer lines. 0 - 9" space with a number greater than 0 then the program will print lines, not the multiple choice answers.
You may want to print the first 20 characters of the answer of an essay question on the teacher's correct answer sheet. To do this you must give your essay question at least one multiple choice answer (the correct one, or at least 20 characters of it) and you must fill in the "Correct answer. ( )" space.
FOOTNOTES & REFERENCES When the questions are used to make a quiz, where the questions are asked and answered on the computer, you may want to add a footnote. A footnote appears after the question has been answered and would either explain the answer or offer additional information on the topic.
A footnote must be the last part of your text and the beginning must be identified by two colons, :: The footnote cannot be longer than 71 characters. Any extra characters will be ignored. See figure 3.
Footnotes cannot be printed on a paper test or an HTML internet quiz. They can be printed on "Print questions" only if "Print Multiple Choice answers" and "Print correct answers" are set to "YES".
A reference is only printed on the teacher's correct answer sheet. It is a note that you write to yourself about the question or its answer. You may use it to refer to which book, manual, etc. (including the page number) has the information needed to correctly answer the question. Since the teacher's correct answer sheet will only print the first 20 characters of an answer to an essay question you may also use a reference to print additional characters.
To enter a reference into a question type in the reference followed by .REF and enclose the whole thing in square brackets. See figure 3. A reference cannot be longer than 25 characters.
A sample teacher's correct answer sheet appears in figure 4.
WITHOUT REFERENCES WITH REFERENCES |
1. A 1. A
Chap. 13 pp. 241
2. BETWEEN MARS & JUPI 2. BETWEEN MARS AND JUPI
(JUPITER)
3. WASHINGTON 3. WASHINGTON
Man. #rt-45 pp. 23
4. F 4. F
Question 33 |
Match the president's name with his accomplishment... A} First Presi dent\Washington B} Civil War President\Lincoln C} Two time President \Cleveland D} Longest term President\F. Roosevelt E} Resigned Presid ent\Nixon F} World War II General\Eisenhower |
Correct answer. (X) Scramble. A-( ) Essay answer lines. 0-9 ( ) |
Match the president's name with his accomplishment...
___ 44. First President A) Lincoln
___ 45. Civil War President B) Nixon
___ 46. Two time President C) Washington
___ 47. Longest term President D) F. Roosevelt
___ 48. Resigned President E) Eisenhower
___ 49. World War II President F) Cleveland |
Each answer must begin with an answer identifier ( A}, B}, C}, etc.) followed by a description, a back slash \, and the answer that matches the description. The description and the matching answer must always be in the same answer. When the question is printed the description column will be printed in the same order as it was typed, the answer column will always be in scrambled order even if you select not to scramble the answers when printing a test or study sheet. The only exceptions are if you are "printing questions" and set "Number questions sequentially" to NO (it is then assumed that you are using the printout to proof your questions), or you are in "Quiz management."
If an answer or description is too long for one line it will be printed on multiple lines. However the maximum number lines, instructions & matches, is 20 for a printed test or HTML internet quiz or 19 lines for a personal computer quiz.
When printing cross match questions each match is considered to be a separate question that can be answered correctly or incorrectly. Therefore when printed each description will be given a question number, there will be a space for each on the "correct answer" and "student answer" sheet, and they will be counted on the grading key. In other words, if you have a test with six multiple choice questions and a cross match question with five matches, you will actually have an eleven question test.
When used in a computer given quiz each match will also be scored as a question. While each question, including the cross match ones, will be given only one number during the quiz, at the end of the quiz (if it has cross match questions) there will be more total questions counted.
In a quiz a cross match question cannot have more than 19 matches. Only 19 lines (instructions + matches) can be displayed, if the number of lines exceeds 19 then the instructions will not be displayed.
For cross match questions "Correct answer" must be set to X, leave "Scramble", and "Essay lines" blank.
FILL IN THE BLANK QUESTIONS
To make a question "Fill in the blank" for a computer quiz simply put the
letters FITB at the end of a multiple choice text. If you do this, the question
will be multiple choice when you print a test (unless you put a number in the
"Essay lines" space) but when you use it for a quiz, it will ask you to type in
your answer.
What the the longest river in the United States? A} Mississippi FITB misisipi*missisipi*mississipi*misissipi*misissippi*missisippi |
Correct answer. (A) Scramble. A-( ) Essay answer lines. 0-9 (1) |
What the the longest river in the United States? --------------------------------------------------------- |
First, the question must have a very simple and unambigious answer. For example, if you asked the question, "London is the capital of what country?" Wouldn't England, Great Britain, The United Kingdom, or United Kingdom, all be correct?
Second, you should be able to express the answer in one or two simple, definite words. There must never be two possible answers to the question. Avoid questions that ask for two things, ie, "Brick and stone" is not the same as "Stone and brick" to a computer. Tell students to avoid grammer, the correct answer should more likely be "Woodchuck" rather than "The woodchuck". If you are asked, "Who did it belong to?", go for "Washington" rather than "Washington's" or "George Washington's". As you should know these things when you write the questions, so must your students know them when they answer them.
Now that I have convinced you that this is impossible and useless, let me make it easier. Unless told otherwise (more on this later) the program will reduce both the student's answer and the correct answer before making the comparison. It does this by first making all the letters uppercase. Then it removes from the answers everything that is not a numeral or a consonant. It is usually the vowels that are misspelled. Then it makes the comparison. Note; this reduction is only done in computer memory, it will not show on the screen. This means that "Ceiling" and Cieling" will match, because both are reduced to "CLNG" before being compared. ("Cling" will also match, nothing is perfect.) See figure 6.
Original answer Reduced George Washington GRGWSHNGTN 14 N. Yellow St. 14NLLWST BASIC language BSCLNGG Encyclopedia NCCLPD Area R Genealogy GNLG |
But what if you WANT an exact match? What if it is a math quiz, or a spelling quiz, or some other type of quiz but (horrors) SPELLING COUNTS! In that case simply make any of the alternate answers, the word EXACT, ie FITB MARX *EXACT *KARL MARX. Now the student's answer must match the correct multiple choice answer or one of the alternate answers exactly, except for case.
Two last, but important, notes. Both the student's answers and the correct answers can be only 20 characters long before reduction. Any extra characters will be ignored.
All questions used in a quiz MUST have at least one multiple choice answer (the correct one) AND the "correct answer" space MUST be filled in. Here is a very short FITB question.
What shines brightest in the sky? A} Sun FITB SON.
With the "Correct answer" filled in as A. Since you would want this to be an essay question if it was ever on a printed test, fill in the "Essay lines" space with 1.
It is very important that the Correct answers, the letters FITB, and the alternate answers are in the correct order. Also the * is used to separate the alternate answers and therefore should not be used before the first one or after the last one. See the examples in figure 7.
Wrong ...a patio? FITB A} Bricks Correct ...a patio? A} Bricks FITB Wrong ...a patio? A} Bricks *Rock*Stone FITB Correct ...a patio? A} Bricks FITB Rock*Stone Wrong ...a patio? A} Bricks FITB*Rock*Stone* Correct ...a patio? A} Bricks FITB Rock*Stone |
SURVEY QUESTIONS
Survey questions are used to ask for information from a person rather than
testing their knowledge. A survey question may ask for a student ID number,
what class they are in, or if they have ever had the mumps. A test or quiz made
up of survey questions could be used as an employment or loan application, a
medical history, demographic study, product survey, or political poll.
Survey questions can be asked alone or with graded questions on a printed test or computer given quiz.
When used in a printed test, survey questions are treated just like graded questions as far as being asked in random order, or with scrambled answers, etc. It is suggested that when a printed test is composed of both survey and graded questions, that you print them out separately. First the survey questions, then the graded ones. This will allow you to use different formatting commands for each type and will group each type together.
In a computer given quiz you must be able to ask both survey and graded questions in the same quiz, if you so choose. Therefore there are rules for treating survey questions differently from graded ones.
1. All survey questions are always asked first, before any graded questions are asked, no matter in what order the questions were selected or whether the graded questions are asked in random order or not.
2. Survey questions are always asked in selected order even if the graded questions are asked in random order.
3. All survey questions in a quiz are asked even if you select to ask only some of the graded questions.
4. You can always go back and forth in the survey portion of a quiz to review and correct your answers.
5. Survey questions are never timed. A per question, or per quiz, time limit applies only to the graded portion of the quiz, if any.
To mark a question as a survey question, make the "Correct answer" equal Z. After all, a survey question does not really have a "Correct answer."
TIPS ON COMPOSING QUESTIONS
When formatting questions the program uses the curvy bracket } to break up
the text into questions and answers. If you use them in your text it may
confuse the program so much that it will lock up.
Actually, the program will ignore them until it finds an uppercase A followed by a curvy bracket, ie. A}, so you can put curvy brackets in the question part of the text but not in the answers.
To be compatable with older versions of this program, right parentheses ) can also be used to format the questions. Don't put a letter A followed by ), ie. A), in your questions.
Square brackets "[ ]" are used to hide text. When you select text for printing you may use a "search" function to find questions. Hidden text can be "found" but will not be displayed or printed. If you have a question list like the one in figure 8, you can easily use the search function to find the beginning of chapter 14. Since all the text in question 234 is in square brackets the program will think it is blank, it will not be displayed and cannot be selected for printing.
231. This is a normal question.. 232. Another normal question.... 233. More normal question....... 234. [Chapter 14] 235. First question in chap. 14. 236. Son of normal question..... 237. A question about Velcro.... 238. You get the idea question.. |
A) Brick B) Stone C) Rock D) Either A or B |
When the answers are scrambled like this;
A) Rock B) Brick C) Stone D) Either A or B |
A better way would be like this;
A) Brick B) Stone C) Rock D) Brick or stone |
TIPS ON TYPING QUESTIONS
Pressing the keys [PG UP], [PG DN], [ESC], or [F5] will save the current
visible version of the question to the disk, erasing a previous version if
any.
[ESC]
If you press [ESC] you will be asked for a question number. If you enter a
number between 1 and the number of the last question in your list, that
question will be displayed for you to edit. If, when asked for the question
number, you press [ESC] again or enter 0 you will quit this function and be
returned to the main menu.
[TAB]
Pressing [TAB] will display pages and pages of help. You will find most of
the text from this section of the user's guide and lots of other information
about creating tests and quizzes.
[PG UP] or [PAGE UP]
Pressing [PG UP] will save the current question and display the previous
question for editing.
[PG DN] or [PAGE DOWN]
Pressing [PG DN] will save the current question and display the next
question for editing. If you are "Entering new questions" and are at the end of
your question list, the next blank question will be loaded. The upper limit is
999. If you are "Editing questions in the file" the upper limit is the last
question currently in your list.
[F1]
If you have made changes in a question you may restore the original version
by pressing [F1] if you have not saved it by pressing one of the keys listed
above.
[F2]
Pressing [F2] will erase the question.
[F3]
[F3] will display the question the way it will be printed. It will always
be a good idea to look at the formatted version of the question to see if you
have made an error in entering it.
[F4]
[F4] will type the next "answer identifer" for you ie. A}, B}, etc. To do
this the cursor must be in a blank area of the text.
[F5]
Pressing [F5] pops up a five function calculator that you can use on the
screen.
[F6]
Pressing [F6] will either allow you to use the dictionary or spell check
the current question or spell check all the questions from the current question
to the last question. See Spell Check.
[CTRL] + [F3]
Holding down [CTRL] and pressing [F3] will display the alternate character
set on the lower half of the screen. Foreign and some math characters (or if
you have the registered version of this program and used the SUPERSUB.COM file
you will see super- and subscripted numbers on a VGA monitor) are shown. To
actually enter one of these characters into your question hold down the [ALT]
key and type the 3 digit number next to the character you want and when your
release [ALT] the character will appear in your question at the cursor
location. NOTE: these characters are displayable on your computer screen, your
printer may or may not be able to print them. Super- and subscript numbers are
only displayable on the screen and can never be printed.
[CTRL] + [F4]
Document / graphic viewer. See Viewer.
[CTRL] + [F5]
Holding down [CTRL] and pressing [F5] will either;
1. Add blank questions to your question list. If you wish to enter a question somewhere in the middle of your list, jump to the place where you wish to enter the question(s). Press [F5]. Tell the program how many blank questions to add. You may then enter text into these blank questions. See figure 9.
2. Remove blank questions. If you press [F5] and then choose to remove the blank questions, all the blank questions in your question list will be removed. You can do this no matter which question is displayed, and since where you were may no longer exist you will be sent to question #1.
When question #23 is displayed
hold down [CTRL] and press [F5].
When asked how many questions to
add, type 1
Before After
21. When.... 21. When....
22. How..... 22. How.....
23. What.... 23.
24. 24. What.... |
You may now enter text, or if you press [F3] you will load the current question into the selected function key.
After entering your text press [ENTER]. Now whenever your cursor is in a blank area that is long enough, pressing the function key that you programmed will enter the phrase into your question.
Copying a question.
If you wish to write several similar questions, where only a couple of
words change, you can make duplicates of a question by using this method.
Jump to the question you wish to duplicate and press the following keys;
[CTRL]+[F6] (Choose function key)
[F7] (Key you wish to program)
[F3] (Capture current question)
(You may now edit text)
[ENTER] (Finished)
Now jump to a blank question and press [F7] to drop the captured text. Of course you could have used [F8] to [F12] instead of [F7] to capture and drop the question.