Exam Designer 1.0 User Guide

8/9/2019 Exam Designer 1.0 User Guide

1/33

1

ExamDesigner 1.0 User Guide

by Scott Garlick


2/33

2

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction................................................5

Welcome to ExamDesigner ..................................................................5

Benefits of using Exam Designer........................................................................ 5

The Components of ExamDesigner.......................................................6

The Database ..................................................................................................... 6

The User Interface ............................................................................................. 6

Formatting Instructions (The Style Sheets) ....................................................... 6

Requirements ......................................................................................7

Microsoft Access ................................................................................................ 7

Microsoft Word 2003.......................................................................................... 7

Chapter 2 - Getting Started............................................8

The Exam Window ...............................................................................8

The Tree View Tab ............................................................................................. 9

The Preview Tab .............................................................................................. 10

The Exam in Microsoft Word 2003.................................................................... 11

The XML and RTF Tabs ..................................................................................... 11

The Tool Bar..................................................................................................... 12

The Question Groups Panel................................................................12

Question Categories...........................................................................13

Possible ways of using Question Categories: ................................................... 13

Assigning Categories........................................................................................ 14

Selecting Categories ........................................................................................ 14

The Question Types ...........................................................................15

Fill-In-The-Blank Questions ............................................................................. 15


3/33

Table Of Contents

3

Writing Questions ............................................................................................ 16

Punctuation Questions ..................................................................................... 16

Correct-The-Mistakes Questions ...................................................................... 16

True or False Questions ................................................................................... 17

Matching Questions.......................................................................................... 17

Capitalization Questions .................................................................................. 17

Multiple-Choice Questions................................................................................ 17

The Exam Window Tool Bar ...............................................................18

Write Exam ...................................................................................................... 18

Shuffle Exam.................................................................................................... 18

Create Sibling .................................................................................................. 18

Change Exam Window Font.............................................................................. 19

Chapter 3 - Creating Exams .........................................20

Opening a New Exam Window ...........................................................20

Adding Questions to the Exam ...........................................................22

To add an individual question to an exam ........................................................ 22

To add a Question Group to an exam ............................................................... 22

Question Group Options.....................................................................23

General Options ............................................................................................... 23

Modifying Exams................................................................................25

'Writing' your Exam ...........................................................................25

Chapter 4 - Entering Questions....................................26

General Rules for Entering Questions ................................................26

Adding a New Question Group ...........................................................26

The Question Group Options ............................................................................ 27


4/33


4

The Question Text ............................................................................................ 28

Examples of Correct Question Syntax ................................................28

Fill-In-The-Blank Questions ............................................................................. 29

Fill-In-The-Blank Questions with the Answers Given ....................................... 29

Writing Questions ............................................................................................ 30

Multiple-Choice Questions................................................................................ 30

Matching Questions.......................................................................................... 31

Punctuation Questions ..................................................................................... 31

Capitalization Questions .................................................................................. 32

True or False Questions ................................................................................... 32

Correcting Mistakes Questions ......................................................................... 32

Adding Questions to the Question Database ......................................33


5/33

5

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Welcome to ExamDesigner

ExamDesigner is a small program which allows teachers to quickly create exams using a

database of existing exam questions.

Nobody likes the time-consuming task of preparing exams. Usually teacherspainstakingly cut questions from older exams and paste them together into a new exam.

Older exams are often misplaced, hard to locate, or formatted differently from each other.Even worse, teachers may use unaltered copies of previous exams to reduce their

workload, thereby making it easier for students to cheat. ExamDesigner was created toaddress these and other issues.

Benefits of using Exam Designer

ExamDesigner can greatly reduce the time required to write an exam while making iteasier and quicker to create exams with a wider variety of questions. With

ExamDesigner, you can:

Create exams using an easy drag-and-drop interface. Easily create multiple "shuffled" exams. Store exam questions in an organized question database. Share your exam questions with other teachers. Use the same formatting so all your exams have the same "look".

To start learning how to use ExamDesigner to make a new exam, see Chapter 3 -

Creating Exams.


6/33


6

The Components of ExamDesigner

ExamDesigner consists of three main components :

A database of questions.

A user interface that allows users to take questions from the database and usethem to create an exam.

Formatting instructions (known as "style sheets") that write your exam in a formatthat can be used by a word processing program. (Currently, the only format

supported is Microsoft Word 2003).

The Database

During installation, a directory called ExamDesigner is created in yourMy Documentsfolder. Inside this folder is a file called exams.mdb. This is a Microsoft Access database

that contains the sample question database that comes with ExamDesigner. As you addyour own questions to the database, this database will grow. It is also easy to combine

and share databases with other teachers. For more information see the General Rules forAdding Questions.

NOTE: The sample question database that comes with ExamDesigner contains examquestions for the English as a Second Language (ESL) program at Pannasastra

University in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The User Interface

The user interface is used to select questions from the question database to create anexam. The main parts of the interface are the Question Groups Panel and the Exam

Window.

Formatting Instructions (The Style Sheets)

Once you have created your exam in ExamDesigner, the program will create a version of

your exam (using the style sheets) that can be opened, edited and printed in MicrosoftWord 2003.

Or more technically, ExamDesigner stores files in the industry-standard XML data

format. It then uses an XSLT style sheet to transform the XML document into somethingthat's easy for a user to read and edit. Currently the only supported output format is

Microsoft Word 2003 (using Word ML).


7/33

Introduction

7

Requirements

To use ExamDesigner, several other programs need to be installed on your computer:

Microsoft Access Microsoft Word 2003 (or Microsoft Word 2003 Viewer) Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (included on ExamDesigner installation CD)

Microsoft Access

ExamDesigner automatically stores the questions in an Access database. ExamDesignershould work with all version of Access. If you have any problems with older versions of

Access with ExamDesigner, please contact the ExamDesigner software developer.

The question database used by ExamDesigner is called exams.mdb. It is installed in a

folder called ExamDesigner inside yourMy Documents folder.

Microsoft Word 2003

This program writes files in Word ML (Word Markup Language - a version of XML)format. Unfortunately, this format is only understood by Microsoft Word 2003. Once the

Word ML file (.xml) is opened by Microsoft Word 2003, it can be saved as a Word file(.doc) which can be used by other versions of Microsoft Word.

You can find out what version of Microsoft Word you have by selecting "AboutMicrosoft Word" from the Microsoft Word help menu.

If you do not have the means of getting a copy of Microsoft Word 2003, you can

download a free copy of Microsoft Word 2003 viewer. This will allow you to open theWord ML file and print your exam without being able to make any edits. You can also

copy the exam from Word 2003 Viewer and paste it into a word processor of your choice.To download Microsoft Word 2003 Viewer, please visit the Microsoft Download Center

(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads).


8/33

8

Chapter 2 - Getting Started

The Exam Window

The Exam Window is on the right-hand side of the screen. When you start

ExamDesigner, the Exam Window will be empty. Choose FileNew to open a newexam window, or Choose FileOpen to open an existing exam.

The exam window contains two main tabs; the Tree View tab and the Preview tab, and

also one or two program development tabs.

Clicking on a tab opens the corresponding panel. Only one panel can be viewed at a time.


9/33

Getting Started

9

The Tree View Tab

Clicking on the first tab, labeled "Tree View", will display the Tree View. This panelrepresents the exam as a "tree" of questions. It has one "root" (the Exam Node), and then

several Question Group "branches". Each Question Group branch represents a group ofquestions. Each Question Group branch has further sub-branches; the first branch for the

instructions and then one branch for each question in the group. You can expand andcollapse the exam and its different Question Groups by left-clicking on the + and - signs.

In the Figure 2.1, Exam 1 contains one Question Group called 'Articles'. The 'Article'

Question Group contains 11 sub-branches, 1 sub-branch for the instructions, and 10 sub-branches for the questions. The total points of the Question Group are displayed beside

the question group name ('# of questions' x 'points per questions' = 'total points'). Thetotal points for the exam are displayed beside the exam node.

Figure 2.1


10/33


10

The Preview Tab

Clicking on the second tab, labeled "Preview", displays the Preview Panel. The PreviewPanel displays an approximation of what the exam will look like when it is printed.

Below is an example of an exam displayed in the Preview Panel:


11/33

Getting Started

11

The Exam in Microsoft Word 2003

The Preview Panel shows only an approximation of how the exam will appear inMicrosoft Word 2003. The 'written' exam, when printed in Microsoft Word 2003, will

look like this:

The XML and RTF Tabs

The third and fourth tabs (labeled "XML" and "RTF", respectively) are used duringsoftware development and can be ignored.


12/33


12

The Tool Bar

Above the tabs, you will find the exam toolbar. See the section on The Exam WindowTool Bar on page 18.

Individual questions or whole Question Groups are added to an exam by dragging the

question or Question Group from the Question Group Panel to the Exam Tree View.

The Question Groups Panel

The main window of ExamDesigner has a panel on the left-hand side that contains all the

available Question Groups organized by Question Group category. .

Moving your mouse over a question group will display basic information about thatquestion group.

To add new questions to an existing Question Group, right-click the Question Group andchoose Add/Edit Questions. For more information on how to enter new question groups,

see General Rules for Entering Questions on page 26.

To create a new Question Group, right-click the exam node and choose Add NewQuestion Group. For more information on adding a new Question Group to the database,

see Adding a New Question Group on page 26.


13/33

Getting Started

13

Question Categories

ExamDesigner allows you to put the questions in a Question Group into differentcategories. You can then have ExamDesigner exclude certain categories when addingquestions to an exam.

Possible ways of using Question Categories:

Here are a few ways you can use Categories in ExamDesigner:

Making a mid-term exam. Your Question Group might include questions relatedto the whole term. On a mid-term exam, however, you will only want to teststudents on the material covering the first half of the term. You can do this by

organizing your questions into two categories; one category for questions relatedto material taught prior to the mid-term, and one category related to material

taught after the mid-term. Assigning categories to the different units of study. If a particular unit isn't

covered, you could exclude the unit category from the exam. Organizing questions of different difficulty. This allows you to easily create

tests of a particular language level.


14/33


14

Assigning Categories

To assign categories to questions within a question group, right-click on the QuestionGroup in the Question Group Panel and choose Add/Edit Questions. This will open the

Add/Edit Questions dialog box :

NOTE: The Add/Edit Questions dialog box currently provides the same functionality asthe Add Question Group Dialog box.

You can select Categories for each question from the pull-down menus in the Category.

column beside each question. If this is the first time adding a category to your Question

Group, the pull-down menu will be empty. Place your cursor in the pull down menu, thentype the category name in order to add a category to the list.

Selecting Categories

Once you have categories assigned to your questions, you can select which Categories to

include in your exam. You can select which categories you would like to include on theexam in the Question Group Options.


15/33

Getting Started

15

The Question Types

There are 8 different types of questions that you can enter into the database:

Fill-in-the-Blank questions

Writing questions Punctuation questions Correcting Mistakes True-False questions Matching questions Capitalization questions Multiple choice questions

The different question types are:

Fill-In-The-Blank Questions

A fill-in-the-blank question is a question that requires the student to write an answer in a

blank. This type of question can have several variants.

Variant A

A word is given in brackets. The student is required to write the correct form of the word

in the blank.

Example:

Ever since I ______________ (move) to Phnom Penh, I ____________ (live) near the Central Market.

Variant B

A group of words is given at the top of the question. The student is required write these

words in the correct blanks.

Example:

Fill in the blanks with words from the list below. Use each word only once.

coffee tea cola

bread butter cheese

______________ is the most popular beverage in the world.

Coca - ____________ is sold all over the world.


16/33


16

Variant C

No prompts are given.

Example:

Fill in the blank with "There is", "It is" or "There are".

__________ now 8:00. ___________ 30 minutes left in the class.

Writing Questions

This is a general category that covers a wide range of questions. The student is given aprompt (perhaps one or two sentences, or a group of words) and the student is required to

write a sentence.

Example:

Make one sentence from two using a relative clause.

A girl was injured in the accident. She is now in the hospital.

____________________________________________

Punctuation Questions

In a punctuation question, an unpunctuated sentence is given. The student is required to

add the correct punctuation. When this type of question is created for the exam, thespacing between words and characters is increased slightly to provide room for the

student to write in the appropriate punctuation.

Example:

Add the necessary punctuation to the following sentences.

T h i s s e n t e n c e a s y o u c a n s e e i s u n p u n c t u a t e d

Correct-The-Mistakes Questions

In this type of question, the student is supposed to correct any mistakes in the sentence.

Extra space is printed between these questions to give the student room to make thenecessary corrections.

Example:

Fix the mistakes concerning parallelism in these sentences.

S h e l i k e s t o p l a y t e n n i s, g o i n g t o t h e c i n e m a, a n d s w i m s i n t h e

o c e a n i n h e r f r e e t i m e.


17/33

Getting Started

17

True or False Questions

In True-False questions, the student must indicate if a sentence is true or false by writingT or F in the space provided. True or False questions are usually reading comprehension

questions based on a short text. Any text for reading will need to be added to the exam bythe teacher.

Example:

Write T (for True) or F (for False) for the following questions.

________ Jeremiah was a bullfrog

Matching Questions

Matching questions require the student to match one set of data to another set.

Example:

Match the colour with the fruit. Fill in the blank with the correct colour.

1. green ___________ A. apple

2. yellow ___________ B. lime

3. red ___________ C. banana

Capitalization Questions

In a Capitalization question, the student is given a sentence containing lower case letters

only. The student must indicate which letters of the text must be capitalized (changed to

upper case).

Example:

Circle the letters in the sentences below that require capitalization.

the office of the fictitious sherlock holmes is located at 22 1/2 baker street.

Multiple-Choice Questions

Students are required to choose the correct answer from a group of possible choices.

Example:

Choose the correct answer.

According to the book, four legs are ________.

A. good

B. bad

C. unnecessary


18/33


18

The Exam Window Tool Bar

The Exam Window Tool Bar contains the unique features that make ExamDesigner souseful. Currently, these features are represented by 4 buttons. From left to right, thesebuttons are:

Write Exam Shuffle Exam Create a Sibling Exam Change Exam Window Font

Write Exam

This button 'writes' the exam for use in Microsoft Word 2003. Clicking on the WriteExam button opens a dialog box and asks you for a filename and then 'writes' the exam.

When exam designer 'writes' the exam, it creates a formatted version of the exam in adocument that can be opened in Word 2003. You can then open the file in Word 2003

and make any final edits.

NOTE: When you open the file in Word, make sure that you set Word to display AllWord Documents (see below). If you set Word to display only Word

Documents, your file won't show up in the list (It has an extension of .xml, not.doc.)

Shuffle Exam

Clicking this button will automatically rearrange the questions in each Question Group inthe exam. After the program rearranges the questions, a new exam window with the

shuffled exam opens.

Some questions, like listening questions or questions that involve dialogue, should neverbe rearranged. These questions should be entered into the database with the Fixed Orderoption selected so they will not be shuffled.

Create Sibling

When you press this button, the program will randomly select questions from the

question database to create an exam with the same question groups as your original exam.


19/33

Getting Started

19

The difference between the two exams depends on the number of questions for aparticular question group in the database. If you have a question group with 10 questions,

and only 10 are entered in the database, then the new exam will have he same 10questions (although not in the same order). On the other hand, if there are 100 questions

in the database, then the two question groups will almost surely be different.

Change Exam Window Font

This allows you to change the font the exam tree is displayed in. It is purely an aid for thenearsighted; it has no effect on the font that is used to print the exam.


20/33

20

Chapter 3 - Creating Exams

You can create a new exam by opening a new Exam Window. After a new ExamWindow is opened you can add questions to the exam. If you have already created an

exam in ExamDesigner, you can easily modify an existing exam. Once you have

assembled the questions in ExamDesigner, the last step is to 'Write' the exam as aMicrosoft Word 2003 file.

Opening a New Exam Window

To begin creating a new exam, choose FileNew or press F2.

The New Exam dialog box will appear. Please select from the pull-down menus or typethe School Name, Program Name, Course Name, Level and Exam Name for the new

exam. The information you enter will appear on the header and footer of the exam. Youcan also change this information later by right-clicking on the Exam Tree View and

selecting Exam Options.

When you click OK, an exam window will open. In the exam window are:

The Exam Tree View Exam Preview The Exam Window Toolbar


21/33

Creating Exams

21

Any other panels (such as XML) are used by the software developer and can be ignored.

When you first create a new exam, the Tree View Panel will only have an empty Exam

node. You need to add question groups to it.


22/33


22

Adding Questions to the Exam

Questions can be dragged into the Exam Window Tree View Panel. Click on the TheTree View Tab to make this panel active in the Exam Window.

To add an individual question to an exam

Click on an individual question in the Question Group Panel and drag it into the ExamWindow Tree View Panel.

If a Question Group for that question already exists in your exam, the question isadded to the existing Question Group.

If a Question Group does not already exist (i.e. The question you have dragged isthe first question from that question group to be dragged into your exam), aQuestion Group is created in your exam with the appropriate instructions for the

student. If the question you dragged already exists in your exam, it is not added.

In future versions of ExamDesigner, you will also be able to add an individual question toyour Question Group by right-clicking the Question Group and selecting Add a New

Question from the pop-up menu.

NOTE: When you drag individual questions to your exam, ExamDesigner will use thedefault Question Group Options. You can change these options by right-

clicking the Question Group in the Exam Window Tree View and selectingQuestion Group Options from the pop-up menu.

To add a Question Group to an exam

Click on a question group in the Question Group Panel, and drag it to the Tree ViewPanel of the exam window. After you release the mouse button, the Question Group

Options dialog box will appear. Choose the Question Group Options that you want andclick OK. The Question Group and the number of questions specified in the Question

Group Options will now be added to the Exam Tree View Panel with the appropriateinstructions for the student.

ExamDesigner chooses the questions from the Question Group randomly and places them

in a random order. Question Groups set to Fixed Order in the Question Group Optionswill not be selected randomly or placed in a random order. You can select Fixed Order

for the Question Group when you Add/Edit Questions in the Question Group Panel.

NOTE: ExamDesigner will not prevent you from adding a Question Group to an exammultiple times.


23/33

Creating Exams

23

Question Group Options

The Question Group Options control how the questions in a question group are formatted(size of blank space, etc.), the number of points awarded for each question, and whichcategories of questions are used. You set these options using the Question Group Options

dialog box:

This dialog box appears when you drag a Question Group into the Exam Tree View. You

can also access the Question Group Options after you have added the Question Group toyour exam by right-clicking the Question Group in the Exam Window Tree View andchoosing Question Group Options.

There are 3 groupings of options in the Question Group Options dialog box:

General Options Question-Type-Specific Options Question Categories

General Options

The first two Question Options in the Question Group dialog box are common to allquestion types. These options are the Number of Questions and the Points Each.


24/33


24

Number of Questions

This option is used to choose the number of questions from the Question Group to be

added to the exam. ExamDesigner chooses the questions randomly and places them in a

random order. If the Add/Edit Questions Options in the Question Group Panel are set toFixed Order, ExamDesigner will take the questions in the order they appear in the

Question Group.

The number of questions available is displayed below the number of questions option.The questions available are the total number of questions in the question group.

NOTE: If the number of questions you choose is higher than the number of questions in

the Question Group, only the total number of questions in the Question Groupwill be added to the exam. For example, if you choose to add 10 questions to

your exam, and the Question Group only has 6 questions, only 6 questions willbe added to the exam.

Points Each

This option is used to set how many points each question is worth. This information willbe displayed on the exam.


25/33

Creating Exams

25

Modifying Exams

This option will be available in future versions of Exam Designer. You will be able toopen an existing exam in ExamDesigner by clicking on FileOpen. The exam can thenbe modified with the same options currently available for creating new exams.

'Writing' your Exam

Once you have added all the questions to the Tree View of the Exam, you are ready to'Write' the exam. When you 'write' the exam using ExamDesigner, a Word ML file (.xml)

is created for use in Microsoft Word 2003. To 'Write' the exam, click on the 'Write'Exam icon in the Exam Window Toolbar. Clicking on the Write Exam button opens a

dialog box and asks you for a filename. After you enter a filename, ExamDesigner will'write' the exam.

When ExamDesigner 'writes' an exam, it creates an Word ML file (.xml) that can only be

read in Microsoft Word 2003 or Word 2003 viewer. For more information about Word2003, see ExamDesigner's requirements.


26/33


26

Chapter 4 - Entering Questions

General Rules for Entering Questions

Questions are entered in plain text format. The answers are enclosed in curlybrackets "{ }". Anything that is enclosed in curly brackets is not displayed on theexam, but it may be displayed on the answer sheet.

Questions must be entered one per line. It isn't necessary to enter the answers to questions (except for multiple choice and

matching questions). Also, fill-in-the-blank type questions require at least one pairof curly brackets in order to tell the program where to draw the blanks.

For more specific rules, see Examples of Correct Question Syntax on page 28.

Adding a New Question Group

To add a new question group to the Question Group database, right-click on a CategoryNode in the Question Group Panel and choose "Add Question Group" from the contextmenu. This will open the Add New Question Group dialog box.

The top section of this dialog contains the question group options. The middle section is

for comments. The bottom part of the dialog contains a text box for you to type or pasteyour questions.


27/33

Entering Questions

27

The Question Group Options

Question Title

This is where you enter the title of the question. This will be displayed as the question

section heading on the exam.

Points / Question

This option is used to set the default value for how many points each question is worth.

This information will be displayed in the exam. This value can be changed later in the

Exam Window Question Group Options.

Instructions

Type the instructions for the question (as they should appear on the exam) here.

Question Type

Select the type of the question. For an discussion of the different type of questions, see

the page on Question Types.

Fixed Order

Some questions (such as listening questions or question that involve dialogue) shouldnever be randomly "shuffled" when the program randomizes an exam. If you check this

box, then the questions in this question group will always be displayed in the same orderthat they are originally entered.

NOTE: The information you enter for The Question Title, Points / Question, andInstructions are displayed in the 'written' exam in Word 2003.


28/33


28

The Question Text

After you have set the question group options, you should type (or paste) your questions

in the text box.

For your questions to be display correctly in your exam, they must adhere to the propersyntax. Before you enter any questions, make sure that you are familiar with the syntax

for Entering Questions.

Examples of Correct Question Syntax

For questions to appear correctly on the exam, you need to enter the text with the correctsyntax in the Questions section of the Add New Question Group dialog box. Curly

brackets, {} which are used to contain the answer to the question, are not displayed onthe exam. Writing the answer within the curly bracket is optional. Curly brackets are also

used for formatting the spaces in most types of questions. The curly bracket, therefore,must be used correctly.

We will take a look at syntax examples for each of the question types:

Fill-in-the-Blank Writing Punctuation Correct the Mistakes True or False Matching Capitalization Multiple Choice

In the following examples, the question as it appears on the exam is shown in ablue box.

To get the question to appear as it does in the blue box, you need to use the correctsyntax. Examples of correct syntax are shown in a tan box.

NOTE: The first line in each example is the question instructions. The instructions need

to be entered into the Instructions area of the Add New Question Group dialogbox.


29/33

Entering Questions

29

Fill-In-The-Blank Questions

For fill-in-the-blank questions, the position of the curly bracket tells the program whereto put the blank. Because of this, you must supply a pair of curly braces to show where

the blank should go. You must do this even if you don't supply an answer within thebrackets.

For example, on the exam you would see:

Fill in the blank with "There is", "It is" or "There are".

__________ now 8:00. ___________ 30 minutes left in the class.

This would be entered in the database as:

{It is} now 8:00. {There are} 30 minutes left in the

class.

If you didn't want to fill in the answers, you would still need to put the curly brackets.

{} now 8:00. {} 30 minutes left in the class.

If you omit the curly braces, the program won't know where to put the blank.

Fill-In-The-Blank Questions with the Answers Given

In some cases, you might want to provide the answers as a list of choices in a table above

the fill-in-the-blank questions.

Write the words below into the correct place in the blanks.

coffee tea cola

bread butter cheese

______________ is the most popular beverage in the world.

Coca - ____________ is sold all over the world.

To do this, you would enter the questions as usual (remembering to include the answers

in curly brackets).

{tea} is the most popular beverage in the world.

Coca - {cola} is sold all over the world.

When you add the question to the exam, you must check the "Show Questions as

Prompts" check box in the Question Group Options dialog box.


30/33


30

Writing Questions

Here is an example of a writing question as it appears on an exam:

Combine the following pairs of sentences using a coordinating conjunction.

Mary works in a bank. John works in an office.

________________________________________________________________

For a writing question to appear like this in your exam, you can enter the text in one of

the following ways. First:

Mary works in a bank. John works in an office. {Mary

works in a bank, and John works in an office.}

Because the answer is not displayed, it doesn't matter if you include it within the curlybracket or not. You could enter the above question as:

Mary works in a bank. John works in an office. {}

or

Mary works in a bank. John works in an office.

or even:

Mary works in a bank. {Mary works in a bank, and

John works in an office.} John works in an office.

In each case, it would be displayed exactly the same on the exam. Anything that is

enclosed in curly braces is considered part of the answer and so it is not displayed.

Multiple-Choice Questions

To enter a multiple choice question, type the question followed by all the differentchoices, with each choice enclosed in curly brackets.

Example:

The best synonym for "fetid" is:

happy sick rancid


31/33

Entering Questions

31

To enter the preceding question, type:

The best synonym for fetid is: {happy}{sick}{!rancid}

NOTE: The exclamation mark is optional - it denotes the correct answer. If you do

include the exclamation mark, it must be the first character after the openingcurly bracket.

Matching Questions

When you enter matching questions, just enter the "prompt" and then the answer enclosedin square brackets.

For example, if you want the following question to appear on your exam

Put the letter of the definition in the blank next to the appropriate word.

1. canopy A. one of the main religions in India

2. Hinduism B. tent without walls

3. CD C. an initialism for Compact Disk

enter

canopy{tent without walls}

Hinduism{one of the main religions in India}

CD{an initialism for Compact Disk}

NOTE: The program will always write the "prompts" in the left-hand column, with

numbers, and it will write the answers to the right, labelled with upper-caseletters. For this reason, when you create a new question group of the matching

class, the instructions should always read:

Put the letter of the definition in the gap next to

the appropriate word.

Punctuation Questions

On the exam, punctuation questions have slightly increased spacing between words and

characters to provide room for the student to add the appropriate punctuation. For

example:

Add the missing punctuation to the sentence below.

T h i s c a r a s y o u c a n s e e h a s j u s t b e e n w a s h e d

For punctuation questions, enter the text exactly how you would like it to appear on the

exam (extra spacing will be added automatically when you 'write' the exam). Any


32/33


32

punctuation you enter will appear in the exam question. No curly brackets are required.For the question above, you should enter:

This car as you can see has just been washed

Capitalization Questions

On the exam, capitalization questions have slightly increased spacing between words and

characters to provide room for the student to correct the uncapitalized letters. On theexam you will see:

Circle the letters that should be capitalized.

d i d y o u k n o w c h r i s t m a s i s o n a t h u r s d a y t h i s y e a r ?

For capitalization questions, enter the text exactly how you would like it to appear on theexam (extra spacing will be added automatically when you 'write' the exam). For the

above question, you should enter:

did you know christmas is on a thursday this year?

True or False Questions

Here is an example of a True or False question as it appears on an exam:

Write T for True or F for False

________ Bangkok is the capital of Cambodia.

For true or false questions, enter the statement. The space for writing the answer isautomatically generated by ExamDesigner. For the question above, enter:

Bangkok is the capital of Cambodia.

Correcting Mistakes Questions

Like punctuation questions, on the exam, correcting mistakes questions have slightly

increased spacing between words and characters to provide room for the student tocorrect the mistake. On the exam you will see:

Each sentence has one mistake. Correct the mistake. You don't need to rewrite thesentence.

T h i s e x a m i s t o o d i f f i c u l t y .


33/33

Entering Questions

For correcting mistakes questions, enter the text exactly how you would like it to appearon the exam (extra spacing will be added automatically when you 'write' the exam). For

the above question, you should enter:

This exam is too difficulty.

Adding Questions to the Question Database

Exam Designer comes pre-loaded with a Question Database based on the English as a

Second Language curriculum at Pannasastra University in Cambodia. These questions areavailable for anyone to use. ExamDesigner is meant to facilitate the sharing of exam

questions between teachers.

Of course, you may need to add your own questions to the Question Database. To do this,there are a few General Rules to be aware of. Please see Chapter 4 - Entering Questions

for more information.