IDEA: Using AMC to quickly create big question banks

Added by Nikola Z. Guscic about 10 years ago

I am playing with the whole idea of question banks, seeing as AMC can create exams with different sets of questions for each student.

What has been stopping me so far is that entering lots of questions in LaTex source can be a bit of a drag.

1. One can use AMC-TXT format instead to quickly enter a large number of questions, compile it ('update documents') and then take a look in DOC-filtered.tex. Questions are all there in proper LaTex format. Great! Copying questions from already made quizzes in .docx format and than tweaking them to work in AMC-TXT is MUCH easier than putting them directly in LaTex format.

2. If I could compile DOC-filtered.tex directly, then all I have to is play with \insertgroup settings and that could output different
quizzes with different sets of questions.

3. As it happens, I don't know how to use this document as a source. If I try to feed it as a source of a next project AMC doesn't want
to 'update documents'. I've tried changing the engine to xetex and still no results.

4. No problem, one can simply copy the LaTex formatted questions from DOC-filtered.tex into another exam template and fiddle
with \insertgroup there.

QUESTIONS:

1. What would it take to use DOC-filtered.tex directly as a source of a new project?
Could one just tweak the preamble a bit to make it work?

2. AMC has neat first and last options to fine-tune the order of questions in groups.
I've tried to look at DOC-filtered.tex to figure out how it is translated to LaTex, but I am a bit
lost. Could the code author explain how to use \def\insertPlainGroupunnamedD{\insertgroup{unnamedD} and suchlike
in Latex? Or should we just rename the groups and use \insertgroup on many small groups to fine-tune the order in LaTex source?

Thanks,

Niko Z.


Replies (4)

RE: IDEA: Using AMC to quickly create big question banks - Added by Anirvan Sarkar about 10 years ago

Nikola Z. Guscic wrote:

1. What would it take to use DOC-filtered.tex directly as a source of a new project?
Could one just tweak the preamble a bit to make it work?

You only need to change the filename from DOC-filtered.tex to source.tex and set the LaTex engine to xetex. There is no need to change the preamble.

RE: IDEA: Using AMC to quickly create big question banks - Added by Nikola Z. Guscic about 10 years ago

Excellent! I renamed the file and set LaTex engine to xelatex in Edit -> Preferences, everything works well!
This is a real time saver, thanks for the tip.

RE: IDEA: Using AMC to quickly create big question banks - Added by Alexis Bienvenüe about 10 years ago

In your example, unnamedD is a group filled with all questions that are neither first nor last, and the command \insertPlainGroupunnamedD first shows all the questions that are to be placed at the beginning, then calls \insertgroup{unnamedD} (this group has been shuffled before if needed), and then shows the questions that are to be placed at the end.
The command \insertPlainGroupunnamedD can be called from an element of a general group to be able to shuffle groups if needed.

RE: IDEA: Using AMC to quickly create big question banks - Added by Nikola Z. Guscic about 10 years ago

Thank you for that explanation!

Much appreciated, Niko Z.

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