NORTHWEST FLORIDA STATE COLLEGE
Department of Mathematics
Partial Credit for Text Fill-in
Questions
D. P. Story
c 1999-2009 dpstory@uakron.edu
June 1, 2009 Version 2.0
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1. Introduction
We introduce a new command \RespBoxTxtPC, for processing text fill-in
questions so that partial credit is awarded for the answer. The idea and
the syntax was suggested to me by Kate of Kenya. Documentation is not
available yet, we are content with presenting an example.
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2. A Quiz
Quiz 1
1. (2pts
) Who was the first President of the United States?
2. (8pts
) Write a short paragraph (in complete sentences) on the defeat
of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Seventh Coalition. Include the name of
the famous battle, the country in which the battle occurred, the year of
the battle, and the name of the commander of the Anglo-Allied army.
Answers:
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3. Syntax
Exerquiz can now create text fill-in questions that awards credit each time
one of the key words are found in the student’s input string.
The command \RespBoxTxtPC is the one that creates a text fill-in question.
Its syntax is
\RespBoxTxt[#1]#2[#3]#4[<num1>]{<word1>}...[<num_n>]{<word_n>}
The new command \RespBoxTxtPC behaves differently than \RespBoxTxt.
JavaScript performs a regular expression search for each word listed (the
word, can be a regular expression), if the word is found (the search is
successful), the total credit for this problem is incremented by the amount
associated with the word.
Parameters:
#1: Optional parameter used to modify the appearance of the text field.
#2: This required parameter is a number indicating the filtering method
to be used. Permissible values of this parameter are
-1: (The default) The author’s and user’s answers are not filtered in
any way. (Spaces, case, and punctuation are preserved.)
0: The author’s and user’s answers are converted to lower case, any
white space and non-word characters are removed.
Section 3: Syntax 5
1: The author’s and user’s answers are converted to lower case, any
white space is removed.
2: The author’s and user’s answers are stripped of white space.
3: Same as -1, but a case insensitive search is performed. This is
the recommended value for this function.
See the JavaScript function eqFilter in exerquiz.dtx for program
code details. Additional filtering options may be added.
Recommendation: For \RespBoxTxtPC, use either -1 (case sensitive
search) or 3 (case insensitive search).
#3: Optional, a named destination to the solution to the question. If this
parameter appears, then a solution must follow the question, enclosed
in a solution environment. If the third parameter is a ‘*’, then an
automatic naming scheme is used instead.
#4: This required parameter is the number of alternative answers that are
acceptable. The alternative answers are listed immediately after this
parameter.
The parameters that follow #4 are of the form [<num>]{<word>}. The
[<num>] is the amount of credit the user gets if his answer contains
<word>. Actually, <word> can be a regular expression so that a more
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sophisticated search criteria can be set up. This is illustrated in the
examples above, and explained below.
A \RespBoxTxtPC question is deemed correct (and marked with a
green rectangle, in the case of a quiz) if at least one of the words is
found.
If a word does not have a partial credit [<num>] before it, that word
has a partial credit of zero, and may as well not be included in the
list of words.
4. Examples and Discussion
In this section, we present examples with extended comments on the code.
1. (2pts
) Who flew the airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December
17, 1903?
This is the simplest example of partial credit.
\RespBoxTxtPC{3}{3}[1]{Orville}[-.5]{Wilbur}[1]{Wright}
Section 4: Examples and Discussion 7
The correct answer is “Orville Wright.” (One point for Orville, and one
point for Wright.) Wilbur did not fly the plane that day, so, I’ve assigned
-.5 credit. If the user enters “Wilbur Wright,” only .5 points are given.
If the user enters “xOrville xWright,” full credit is awarded, this is
because the strings “Orville” and “Wright” were found. Within the \RespBoxTxtPC
command, \\ is redefined; \\ takes one argument, and is used
to insert escape sequences into the string that have meaning to a regular
search. We want to enter \\b, which stands for a word boundary.
1. (2pts
) Who flew the airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December
17, 1903?
This is the simplest example of partial credit.
\RespBoxTxtPC{3}{3}
[1]{\\bOrville\\b}
[-.5]{\\bWilbur\\b}
[1]{\\bWright\\b}
Section 4: Examples and Discussion 8
Now, a response like “xOrville xWrght” awards no points, “OrvilleWright”
awards no points as well.
The compare text routine (compareTxt()) breaks the author’s answer
words into an array (breaks a <word> by at each space; for example, if
{Orville Wright} is one of the words, the compare breaks this into an
array, ["Orville","Wright"], and searches for each of these words. It is
a successful search, and any credit is awarded both words are found. For
example,
1. (2pts
) Who flew the airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December
17, 1903?
This is the simplest example of partial credit.
\RespBoxTxtPC{3}{2}
[2]{Orville Wright}
[1.5]{Wilbur Wright}
Here, you should get 2 points for “Orville Wright” and 1.5 points for
“Wilbur Wright.” These words can appear in any order, for example,
Section 4: Examples and Discussion 9
“Wright Orville” is awarded 2 points. (This feature was part of the \RespBoxTxt
scheme of comparison.)
Important: I don’t really recommend having spaces in the <word> for
\RespBoxTxtPC, except in this simple case. Placing spaces in the <word>
causes problems when more sophisticated searching (such as alternation) is
used.
Alternation is useful for offering several alternative versions of the same
word, including alternate spellings. Let’s look at the George Washington
question.
1. (2pts
) Who was the first President of the United States?
\RespBoxTxtPC[\rectW{3in}]{3}*{3}
[0.5]{(\word{President}|\word{Pres.{0,1}}| % (1)
\word{General}|\word{Gen.{0,1}})} % (1)
[0.5]{(\word{George}|\word{Geo.{0,1}})} % (2)
[1.0]{\word{Washington}} % (3)
Section 4: Examples and Discussion 10
Note: I’ve wrapped the first word around to fit it on the page, this wrapping
should not be done in the source file.
I’ve placed each <word> in parentheses, this is called grouping. Within
each group, I’ve placed several | characters, this is the symbol for alterna-
tion.
As we’ve seen in the previous examples on the Wright brothers, in most
cases, it is important that some key words not appear as a substring of
another word; consequently, we mark such as word with \\b. As a convenience,
exerquiz defines the \word; the code \word{AcroTeX} expands to
\\bAcroTeX\\b.
Comments on verbatim code:
• In line (1), we offer 0.5 points if the user enters “President”, “Pres.”,
“General”, or “Gen.”. We use {0,1} following the period (.), this
means, match 0 or 1 periods (.); consequently, “Pres” and “Pres.”
are both matches. (This is not really needed here, credit would be
given for “Pres” and “Pres.” if the matching word was just Pres.)
• In line (2), we accept either “George” or “Geo.” (with or without the
period).
• In line (3), we accept the word “Washington” and award 1 point.
Section 4: Examples and Discussion 11
Now, we analyze the Napoleon question.
1. (8pts
) Who was the first President of the United States?
This is the simplest example of partial credit.
\RespBoxTxtPC[\Ff{\FfMultiline} % <-- multiline text field
\rectW{.9\linewidth}\rectH{4\baselineskip}]{3}*{7}
[1]{(Napoleon|Bonaparte)}
[.5]{Battle}
[.5]{defeated}
[2]{Waterloo}
[1]{Belgium}
[1]{1815}
[2]{((Duke\\s+of\\s+){0,1}Wellington|Arthur\\s+Wellesley)}
Section 4: Examples and Discussion 12
We award 1 point for either “Napoleon” or “Bonaparte,” and various points
for various key words that are expected to be in a complete sentence. More
credit for the requested information, less credit for other words in the sen-
tence.
When using alternation, do not use spaces in your words. In the earlier
examples, this was not a problem, here, we demonstrate how to deal with
spaces. In the last word,
[2]{((Duke\\s+of\\s+){0,1}Wellington|Arthur\\s+Wellesley)}
if a space is expected use \\s+, this represents one or more spaces (in a
regular expression). Here, we accept “Duke of” followed by “Wellington”.
I’ve insert grouping (Duke\\s+of\\s+) followed by the repetition character
{0,1}; altogether
(Duke\\s+of\\s+){0,1}
matches zero or one occurrences of the phrase “Duke of”. with one or more
spaces between “Duke” and “of” and one or more spaces following “of”.
Note, you may want to require “Duke of” to appear before “Wellington”,
in which case, our word would be
Duke\\s+of\\s+Wellington
We also accept the Duke’s real name “Arthur Wellesley”.
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Solutions to Quizzes
Quiz 1: Question 1. One response to this question is
President0.5pt
(or Pres. or General or Gen.) George0.5pt
(or
Geo.) Washington1pt
Solutions to Quizzes 14
Quiz 1: Question 2. One such paragraph is
Napoleon1pt
(or Bonaparte) was defeated0.5pt
at the
Battle0.5pt
of Waterloo2pt
, Belgium1pt
, in 18151pt
, by the
Duke of Wellington2pt
(or Arthur Wellesley).