Numerical question type

From the student perspective, a numerical question looks just like a short-answer question. The difference is that numerical answers are allowed to have an accepted error. This allows a continuous range of answers to be set.

For example, if the answer is 30 with an accepted error of 5, then any number between 25 and 35 will be accepted as correct.

Numerical questions can also have case-insensitive non-numerical answers. This is useful whenever the answer for a numerical question is something like N/A, +inf, -inf, NaN etc.

Template:Moodle 1.7In Moodle 1.7 text answers are no longer allowed - this is what short answer is for.

What is new in 1.7 is that you can have different answers with different levels of accuracy. That lets you as questions like: "What is a root of x^2 - 3x + 2?" or awards different levels of credit depending on how accurate the student was.

Question set-up

1. Give the question a descriptive name (This is only seen in the question list that you see as a teacher when you are putting together a quiz)
2. Type the equation or numerical question for your students to solve. Moodle has a various text filters that allow you to type an equation and have it properly typeset when displayed. The Algebra filter is very good for writing common matematical expressions in a simple way. More complicated expressions may be written using the TeX filter. Filters (administrator) contains information for administrators on how to enable these filters.
3. Select an image to display if you want to add a picture to the question.
4. Enter the correct answer. 23.4 23,4 and 2.34E+1 would all work. (Prior to Moodle 1.7, you can only add one correct answer in the user interface. If you import the question with a GIFT format file you can specifiy multiple answer(intervals) with accompanying feedback and point-percentage. This is done similar to the CLOZE Numerical format. There is no units support in the Cloze type.) It is possible, though not simple, to get support for several answer intervals and unit support if you create the question in the numerical interface and export it in Moodle XML format. Than you can duplicate the <answer> segment and put in another answer interval and the feedback and grading factor you want for that interval. Than import it again. You will not be able to edit the question in the normal numerical interface though.
5. Enter the accepted error, 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.
6. Enter feedback for the question. It is possible to use all kinds of HTML formating for the feedback but it must be written by hand. Unfortunately (in 1.5.3 anyhow) it is right justified and has no identifying formatting.
7. Units can be specified and work to a degree. Unfortunately if the student answers with the right number but no unit he can get full points. And if he thinks of another unit and has the right number and no unit, he gets no differentiated feedback, just wrong. You must also give the conversion factor . So if your main answer was 5500 with unit W and you wanted to allow the unit kW you would have to specify the factor 0.001. If you wanted to allow Watt you would use the factor 1.
8. Moodle 1.7 only: If you want some feedback shown to wrong answers, type a feedback comment with a blank answer.
9. Click Save Changes to add the question to the category