question types

You may add a variety of different types of questions in the Quiz module. The standard quiz question types are listed below with brief descriptions and examples. All example question files are in LearningZone XML format. You can also get a copy of all the example questions together,again in LearningZone XML format.  

Calculated

Calculated questions offer a way to create individual numerical questions by the use of wildcards (i.e {x} , {y}) that are substituted with random values when the quiz is taken.

For example, if you want to create a large number of 'Calculate the area of a rectangle' problems to drill your learners, you could create a question with two wildcards (i.e. {base}, {height}) and put in the "Correct Answer Formula=" input field {base} * {height} (* being the multiplication sign).

1. Select Calculatedfrom the Create new question dropdown menu.
2. Select the category.
3. Any shared wildcards for this category are listed beneath. If you change category, you'll need to click the Update the categorybutton to refresh this list. There may not be any shared wildcards yet, if not, you can create them later if you wish.
4. Enter a question name, this is used to identify the question later.
5. Create the question text.
6. Enter the Default grade.
7. Set the Penalty factor.
8. Add General Feedback, if required, general feedback displays regardless of the learner giving the correct or incorrect response.
9. Add the formula for the answer, this formula must contain at least the wildcards that appear in the question text.
10. Set the grade for the answer.
11. Set the acceptable tolerance for error.
12. Set the tolerance type. 

The tolerance and tolerance type settings combine to give a range of acceptable scores. So, if tolerance = t, correct answer = x and the difference between the user's answer and the correct answer is dx, then the tolerance types are as follows: 
Nominal: Mark correct if dx <= t 
Relative: Mark correct if dx / x <= t 
Geometric: Mark correct if dx² / x² <= t²

13. The next two settings, Correct answer showsand Format determine the precision of the answer, use these to select the number of decimal places or significant figures you want to use.
14. You can specify as many answer formulae as you like; click Add another answer blankto add more.
15. You can also specify units for the answers. For example, if you enter a unit of 'cm' here and the accepted answer is 15, then the answers '15cm' and '15' are both accepted as correct.

Click Next page to save what you've done and move on.

Correct answer formula syntax

DO NOT PUT THE = sign in the formula.

As a general rule, write these formulas like you would in a calculator e.g. 3 + 5 * sin(3/{x}) A notable exception is exponentiation, where x3 cannot be entered as {x}^3, but instead should be entered as pow({x}, 3).

Each functions placeholders and other arguments should be in parentheses (brackets). For example, if you want learners to calculate the sine of one angle and two times cosine of another, you would enter sin({a}) + cos({b}*2).

It's usually better to have too many parentheses (brackets) than too few. The server won't care, and the more specific you are about what you mean, the more likely it will like your complex formulas.

There is no implicit multiplication. To you, the human editor, "5(23)" or "5x" may seem perfectly obvious. To the server doing the math, it's crazy talk and won't be understood. Always use the "*" for multiplication.

Any special mathematical function must have parentheses around its values. Take the sine function in the first bullet point for instance. Notice that the 3 / x is wrapped in parentheses (brackets)--this is so the server can understand it properly. Without those parentheses, the server won't know if you mean "(sin 3) / x" or "sin (3 / x)" and will reject the entire formula accordingly.

Embedded answer (Cloze)

When using an Embedded answer (Cloze) question it is important to understand the question text format.

Questions consist of a passage of text (in LearningZone format) that has various sub-questions embedded within it, including:

1. short answers (SHORTANSWER or SA or MW), case is unimportant,
2. short answers (SHORTANSWER_C or SAC or MWC), case must match,
3. numerical answers (NUMERICAL or NM),
4. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE or MC), represented as a dropdown menu in-line in the text
5. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_V or MCV), represented a vertical column of radio buttons, or
6. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_H or MCH), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons.

Be careful when copying a cloze type question into the WYSIWYG HTML editor, as line breaks tend to get added, which destroys the question.

If the correct answer contains } # ~ / " or \ you will have to escape them by putting a \ in front of each such character. The { shouldn't be escaped, this can be vital in getting TeX expressions to work. In the feedback ~ and } must be escaped otherwise it will be interpreted as the next answer or end of the short answer section respectively. Quotation signs: "can lead to trouble in both places. Use the HTML entity: & quot; (without the space between & and quot;). If you want to have Mathematical symbols there can be problems with the \ used in TeX expressions. One alternative can be to use unicode characters.

Short-answer

Short-answer questions require the trainee to type an answer to a question. The answer could be a word or a phrase, but it must match one of your acceptable answers exactly. It’s a good idea to keep the required answer as short as possible to avoid missing a correct answer that’s phrased differently.

1. Select Short-answerfrom the Create new question dropdown menu.
2. Enter a question name, this is used to identify the question later.
3. Create the question text.
4. Enter the Default grade.
5. Set the Penalty factor.

You can specify what fraction of the achieved score should be subtracted for each wrong response. This is only relevant if the quiz is run in adaptive mode so that the learner is allowed to make repeated responses to the question. The penalty factor should be a number between 0 and 1. A penalty factor of 1 means that the learner has to get the answer right in their first response to get any credit for it at all. A penalty factor of 0 means the learner can try as often as they like and still get full marks.)

6. Add General Feedback, if required, general feedback displays regardless of the learner giving the correct or incorrect response.
7. Select if case-sensitivity is important.
8. Enter the answers. 

You must provide at least one possible answer and answers left blank are not used. An asterisk (* ) can be used as a wildcard to match any characters. The first matching answer is used to determine the score and feedback.

9. Set the grade for each answer.
10. Add feedback, if required.
11. Click Save changes.

Numerical

Numerical questions are a lot like short-answer questions for equations. You can create a question with an equation, and your learners type in a numerical answer. Learners get credit for answers within the range of answers you specify.

1. Select Numericalfrom the Create new question dropdown menu.
2. Enter a question name, this is used to identify the question later.
3. Create the question text.
4. Enter the Default grade.
5. Set the Penalty factor.
6. Add General Feedback, if required, general feedback displays regardless of the learner giving the correct or incorrect response.
7. Enter the correct answer and grade. You may choose to add a number of correct answers with different levels of accuracy and corresponding different levels of credit.
8. Enter the accepted error, i.e., the range above or below the correct answer. For example, if the correct answer is 5, but you will accept 4 or 6 as answers, your accepted error is 1.
9. Add feedback, if required.
10. If you want to accept answers in multiple units (e.g., metric or imperial units), specify the unit multiplier and the unit label in the areas.
11. Click Save changes.

Random short-answer matching

After an optional introduction, the respondent is presented with several sub-questions and several jumbled answers. There is one correct answer for each question.

The respondent must select an answer to match each sub-question.

Each sub-question is equally weighted to contribute towards the grade for the total question.

The questions and answers are randomly drawn from the pool of 'Short Answer' questions in the current category. Each attempt on a quiz may therefore have different questions and answers. You must make sure that the category contains enough unused short-answer questions, otherwise the learner will be shown a friendly error message. The more short-answer questions you provide the more likely it is that Learners see a new selection on each attempt.

1. Select Random short-answer matchingfrom the Create new question dropdown menu.
2. Enter a question name, this is used to identify the question later.
3. Create the question text.
4. Enter theDefault grade.
5. Set the Penalty factor.
6. Add General Feedback, if required, general feedback displays regardless of the learner giving the correct or incorrect response.
7. Select the number of questions you want to add to the matching question.
8. Click Save changes.

Drag and drop markers

This question type allows learners to drop markers onto an area on a background image. 

How to create a question

1. Select Drag and drop markersfrom the Create new question dropdown menu.
2. Give the question a descriptive name to help you find it in the question bank. (Learners won't see the name.) In our example, learners must correctly locate regions of Australia.
3. Add the question to the text editor, using any formatting you wish.
4. In the Previewsection, click the background image button to upload an image. Larger images will be displayed at a maximum 600 x 400.Your image will then display under the file upload box. Note that grid lines are visible:
5. In the Markerssection, add the words you want the learners to drag onto the areas you select.
6. In the Numberdropdown, you can select the number of times the marker can be used. Selecting 1 means that when it has been used once, it will no longer be available in the list. It is fine to leave the numbers as the default 'Unlimited'; it just means that each marker will still remain once it has been used.
7. In the Dropzonessection, decide the shape you want the selectable areas to be: circle, polygon or rectangle. Our example uses a rectangle. In each Marker dropdown, choose the item you want for that area.
8. You will now see by your uploaded image that these names are displayed:
9. Now you need define the drop zone by manually to add the coordinates of the areas into which you want learners to position the marker.
10. Once all co-ordinates have been manually entered, you can save the changes and preview the question.

When dragging a marker learners must position the little circle top left of the marker in the centre of the area they have selected, not the whole marker, as this might cause confusion and an unexpected incorrect answer.

Defining the drop zone

Click the question mark icon next to Drop zone 1 to see how to add these for your chosen shape.

Our example uses a rectangle, so we can run through how that works. We need to define four numbers:

• The top left corner of our selected area, by counting the boxes in from the left and down from the top. Each box is ten pixels so three boxes = 300 for example.
• The width of our selected area, by counting the boxes across.
• The height of our selected area, by counting the boxes up.

The numbers are separated by commas, with a semicolon separating the corner coordinates from the size, e.g. 10,30;170,250.

The image updates immediately so you can check your accuracy and adapt the coordinates.

Generally, you should make the drop zones a little bit too big. That is, it is better to occasionally grade an incorrect response right, than to ever grade a correct response as incorrect.

Using markers and drop zones more than once

If 'Unlimited' is selected from the 'Numbers' dropdown in the Markers section, then the markers may be used more than once.

If the same coordinates must used for several markers in the Drop zones section, then more than one marker may be placed in a single area, as in the example below (1) , where learners identify regions of Great Britain, the UK and the British Isles (2):

Scoring and feedback

All drop zones are weighted identically. Only drop zones that are correctly labelled gain marks. There is no negative marking of drop zones that are incorrectly labelled.

If more markers are placed on the image than there are drop-zones a penalty is applied for the extra markers. If there are n drop zones and n+m markers are placed of which p are placed correctly the score is calculated as p/(m+n).

If the question is used in 'interactive with multiple tries' style the marking is modified as follows:

• The mark is reduced for each try by the penalty factor.
• Allowance is made for when a correct choice is first chosen providing it remains chosen in subsequent tries.

Show the number of correct responses: Include in the feedback a statement of how many choices are correct.

State which markers are incorrectly placed: Include in the feedback a list of markers which are incorrectly placed.

Move incorrectly placed markers back to default start position below image: When Try again is clicked incorrectly positioned labels are removed.

Accessibility

Marker questions are keyboard accessible. Use the <tab> key to move between the markers and the <arrow> keys to position the markers.

Tips and tricks

1. Put the answer into the question name so you can quickly see the answers when learners are asking for answers. This is especially useful if you're dealing with large sets of questions! (No option yet for viewing category or answer of question in the list of questions).
2. Export questions in GIFT or Moodle XML formats, then import them into a Lesson. 
3. Remember that while some of the same question types can be found in both the Quiz and Lesson modules, they can be very different. Scoring and grading each learner's choice is more robust in a Quiz. On the other hand, each Lesson question answer also has a jump associated it.
4. Use GIFT or other export modes to print questions and answers in a category. Hint, clever use of word processor macros, using search and replace, can tidy up a GIFT file for printing.
5. The question title is useful in sorting and making notes. For example, 'ZZ remove 2010-3 Why did the learner', will put this question at the bottom of the list. Or where you want a 'the' questions in a category to appear in a specific order, use letters or numbers, knowing that AA will come first, AB will be second in the list.
6. Do a copy and paste from a PDF file into the question content area. Reduces 'other' hidden code which Word, Open Office and other programs can insert.