Formulas question type

This article is a stub. Please help improve Moodle Docs by editing it and adding some content.

Formulas question type
Type	question type
Set	N/A
Downloads	https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=qtype_formulas
Issues	https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/CONTRIB/component/14833/?selectedTab=com.atlassian.jira.jira-projects-plugin:component-summary-panel
Discussion	https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=181049
Maintainer(s)	Jean-Michel Védrine

Usage

You would enter your 'sets' (called 'lists' in formulas questions) in the 'Random variables' field when creating question as:

a = {100, 125, 150, 175, 200};
b = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
c = {10, 12, 14, 16, 18};

When an attempt is started a, b, and c will take a value drawn from the corresponding list at random.

You can then define other variables depending of these ones in the 'Global variables' field if you want. For instance if you need the value of a+2*b somewhere in your question text or Combined or general feedback, just define

d=a+2*b; in 'Global variables'

Once you have defined your variables, you can use them in all the question's texts putting them in curly braces (for instance {a}, {b} or {d}). This is true not only for the Question text but also for all feedbacks and hints when you use interactive behaviour (The author thinks that the fact that variables can't be used in calculated question's feedback is a serious problem to give students an appropriate feedback using the values they saw in their attempt)

Other advantages

Another big advantage of formulas questions is that a question can have several 'parts' and all parts using the same variables; and even more, the answer to each part can not only be a number but a vector if you want.
Last thing, formulas questions has a complete unit system that is quite useful for engineering

Author

Jean-Michel Védrine

Moodle versions

2012062500 (Moodle 2.3) or newer

Translations available

This plugin is also available in Mexican Spanish

Installation

It's a Moodle plugin, so you must install it (or your administrator must do it).
Currently formulas question type plugin is not available in the Moodle plugins Directory
You must download it from the author's Github repository.
And you must install another plugin (Tim Hunt's adaptive multipart behaviour) so that it works.

Drawbacks

Mastering formulas questions is difficult, there is a learning curve
Documentation is not very good, it was written by Hon Wai Lo (original author of the formulas questions for Moodle 1.9 and 2.0, Jean-Michel Védrine upgraded it for Moodle 2.3 to 2.8), unfortunately Jean-Michel Védrine never had time to improve it
It's a Moodle plugin, so you must install it (or your administrator must do it). Currently formulas question type plugin is not available in the Moodle plugins Directory, you must download it from the author's Github repository. And you must install another plugin (Tim Hunt's adaptive multipart behaviour) so that it works.
As any addon, you will be dependent in the future of the maintainer to upgrade it when a new Moodle version is released

Documentation