Formulas question tutorial

< Formulas question type

Single question

Let's start by considering the simple case of a single question. We will see how the text of the question can be placed in the Main question, or in a Part if we treat the question as a subquestion. Better yet, we will show how to use a placeholder.

Question text in the Main question

The most basic form of a Formulas question is having the text of the question in the Question text field of the Main question section. To create such a simple Formulas question, you must complete at least all the required fields, that is, the five below marked with ! and *:

General
  Question name!
Main question
  Question text!
Part 1
  Part's mark*
  Answer*
  Grading criteria*

Example

Create your first Formulas question as follows:

General
  Question name!       My first Formulas question
Main question
  Question text!       What is 3 + 4?
Part 1
  Part's mark*         1
  Answer*              7
  Grading criteria*    Absolute error == 0

Congratulations, you just created your first Formulas question! The Editing a formulas question page should look like this:

and the Formulas question should look like this:

Question text in a Part

For a single question, it makes almost no difference if the question text is put in the Main question or in a Part.

Example

Modify the previous example and place the text of the question this time in the Part's text field of Part 1:

General
  Question name!       Question text in Part 1
Main question
  Question text!       A question on the addition
Part 1
  Part's mark*         1
  Answer*              7
  Grading criteria*    Absolute errror == 0
  Part's text          What is 3 + 4?

The Formulas question should look like this:

Note that some text has to appear in the Question text field of the Main question because it is a required field.

Using a placeholder

Placeholders are used to insert the text of subquestions in the Main question. We will see later that they are very convenient. Note that each subquestion being assigned to a part, we will use interchangeably the terms subquestion and part.

Example

Modify the previous example and use a placeholder to insert the text of the subquestion in the main question:

General
  Question name*       Using a placeholder
Main question
  Question text*       A question on the addition
                       {#01}
Part 1
  Part's mark*         1
  Answer*              7
  Grading criteria*    Absolute error == 0
  Placeholder name     #01
  Part's text          What is 3 + 4?

The formulas question will look the same as in the previous example.

---

Multiple questions, i.e. subquestions

If there is more than one question in a formulas question, we will treat them as subquestions. It is then necessary to define the mark, answer and grading criteria in a part for each subquestion.

Without placeholders

If you don't use subquestion placeholders, the answer boxes of the subquestions will simply be stacked one above the other.

Example

Create a formulas question that has three sub-questions. Do not use placeholders.

General
  Question name*       A formulas question with three subquestions
Main question
  Question text*       What is 3 + 4?
                       What is 4 + 5?
                       What is 5 + 5?
                       Please enter your answers below in the same order as the questions:
Part 1
  Part's mark*         1
  Answer*              7
  Grading criteria*    Absolute error == 0
Part 2
  Part's mark*         1
  Answer*              9
  Grading criteria*    Absolute error == 0
Part 3
  Part's mark*         1
  Answer*              10
  Grading criteria*    Absolute error == 0

The formulas question should look like this:

Obviously, we can do better by placing the three questions each one in a part.

< Formulas question type