[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Feature Requests-805346 ] Multiple answerboxes

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Feature Requests item #805346, was opened at 2003-09-12 21:24
Message generated for change (Tracker Item Submitted) made by Item Submitter
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439482&aid=805346&group_id=44411

Category: None
Group: None
Status: Open
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Multiple answerboxes

Initial Comment:
I move the following post from the mailing list here so 

that it doesn't get lost:



 > The original proposal was to allow an arbitrary number 

of answerboxes

 embedded

 > anywhere within the text of the question. One 

possible syntax would

 > be to include the answerboxes inside the t> flag as 

something like

 > %(type,size)

 > where type is the required Maple type of the anwer 

and size is the size of

 > the box.

 >

 > t> Find two primes $p_1$ and $p_2$ such that $p_2 

> p_1 > @lowerbound@$.\

 >    $p_1=$ %(posint,4) and $p_2=$ %(posint,4).

 > s> [ proc(ans1,ans2) ......

 

 Yes, I would like to see this type of question some 

day.  I suggested

 something similar to this to the JISC list last November.  

WeBWorK already

 has exactly this capability, for example.  I would modify 

your suggestion

 slightly so the answerbox syntax would be:

 

 %(name,type,hsize,vsize)

 

 so that we can specify the horizontal and vertical size 

to each answer box

 (for example, if you want to make a survey or essay 

question with a very

 large answer box (if hsize or vsize are omitted they 

would have a default

 value). By naming the answer boxes we could just 

return a single table as

 the student's answer, i.e.

 

 > t> Find two primes $p_1$ and $p_2$ such that $p_2 

> p_1 > @lowerbound@$.\

 >    $p_1=$ %(p,posint,4) and $p_2=$ %(p2,posint,4).

 > s> [ proc(ans)

          if isprime(ans[p1]) and

             isprime(ans[p2]) and

             ans[p1]<ans[p2] and

             lowerbound < ans[p1] then

           return 1;

          else

           ......

 

 We could call this a TableQuestion, since it returns a 

table instead of a

 Matrix.  The advantage to naming this is that it makes 

the coding a bit more

 readable when you have many answer boxes, and if you 

later reformat the

 question to put the answer boxes in a different order or 

if you randomize

 the wording of the question so that the boxes randomly 

occur in a different

 order, you could have a single solution proc that 

doesn't need to take the

 order of the boxes into account.

 

 In this case the validation mechanism would not accept 

any student answers

 unless all of the boxes satisfied the correct type, and 

all boxes would be

 graded simultaneously each time.

 

 Another possible syntax might be

 

 %(type,name,hsize,vsize)

 

 so that if 'name' is omitted, the question boxes are just 

numbered in order

 1,2,3, so that in the s> proc we would have ans[1], ans

[2], etc.  That way

 naming the boxes would be optional.  I like your idea of 

putting the type in

 the answer box specifier.  I guess if that was omitted 

too it could default

 to 'anything', so that %() would be the minimalists 

answer box. :) Actually,

 to be consistent with the @-substitution syntax, 

perhaps the answerbox

 syntax should be

 

 %type,name,hsize,vsize%

 

 Anyway this is definitely on the wish list for future AiM.  

I don't think we

 will have it before Monday though. :)

 

 KEN



----------------------------------------------------------------------

You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439482&aid=805346&group_id=44411