add 'hidden' check box with open short open questions on separate answer sheet (Feature #50)

Alexis Bienvenüe wrote:

hidden tick-box in the separate answer sheet

Maybe not hidden but with some text to say the students not to tick anything, like "reserved" or similar? This way, the teacher can tick the boxes on the papers before scan (if the boxes are hidden, the only way to control them is the manual data capture window).

My 'hidden' is a misnomer. If you render the boxes in

\color{white}

and you can do it by:
add this code :

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% command to make choices (0 to 5 points) for teacher grading
\newcommand{\teachergrading}{\scoring{auto=0}{
\def\AMCbeginAnswer{}
\def\AMCendAnswer{}
\def\AMCanswer##1##2{##1 ##2 \hspace{1em}}
\fbox{
teacher only
\begin{choicescustom}[o]
\wrongchoice[0]{0}
\wrongchoice[1]{1}
\wrongchoice[2]{2}
\wrongchoice[3]{3}
\wrongchoice[4]{4}
\correctchoice[5]{5}
\end{choicescustom}}
}}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

then but this code any where:

@\begin{question}{ts1}
text her

\noindent\fbox{\begin{minipage}{.95\linewidth}~\vspace*{5cm}\end{minipage}}

\teachergrading
\end{question}@

thanks for Alexis

I experimented with the key lineheight. a value of zero without enclosing box could do the trick, if I also could reduce the post answer vertical white space.

For my purpose it would be nice to have a \ifAnswer macror, which I could use to render the {short} answer as hint for the corrector in the solution mode.

Pieter Van den Hombergh wrote:

I experimented with the key lineheight. a value of zero without enclosing box could do the trick, if I also could reduce the post answer vertical white space.

For my purpose it would be nice to have a \ifAnswer macror, which I could use to render the {short} answer as hint for the corrector in the solution mode.

Looking at the latex code (in the doc) a parameter openboxwidth, default .95\linewidth and a boolean to box the short answer will also help.

What happens if the student make the area near box C black. Could it be abused as a trick to cheat?

For my purpose it would be nice to have a \ifAnswer macror, which I could use to render the {short} answer as hint for the corrector in the solution mode.

How will you correct these tests? Will you look at a corrected answer sheet from the same page each time you correct a page? I'm afraid it can be time consuming. Do you think it would be ok to write a hint for the corrector just before/after the boxes that will be printed on the papers (a hint to remember which question it is, not to remember what is the answer), and then correct the papers on the papers themselves before scanning?

What happens if the student make the area near box C black. Could it be abused as a trick to cheat?

If you use only manual data capture to mark open questions, add option scan=false to AMCOpen so that no data capture will be made for this question.

Added lineup option in revision r1029. Is the following more acceptable? Note that the mark is only 0 or 1, only one box is necessary.

\begin{question}{Yaounde}
  What is the capital city of Cameroon?
  \AMCOpen{lineup=true,hspace=.5mm,Treserved=Cam}{\wrongchoice[P]{p}\scoring{1}\correctchoice[C]{c}\scoring{2}}
\end{question}

Pieter Van den Hombergh wrote:

Thank you for the effort, but:

In the separate answer sheet it looks a lot better although still a bit heigh. The vertical spacing is still a bit big. If all the other 14 open questions where of same height, the 60 questions would not fit on a page anymore. And I've squeezed hard last time I prepared this exam.

I assume Treserved is some text that is reserved for the solution sheet. As in Treserved=yaounde if you want yaounde in the solution sheet.
I would like to see this text only on the solution sheet. Now it is on the answer sheet as well. I do not want all my students pass with flying colours ;-)).

See attached answer sheet.

In the question pages there still is no area to write the tentative answer (the answer the student writes while working through the questions).

Maybe you can put the reserved word in the margin as in \marginpar{} on the outer nearest margin. That would suffice for the corrector I think.

I would like to see this text only on the solution sheet.

1. you use Treserved=cam, so that you see (and the student also sees) that question 31 is the question about Cameroon. This allows to see quickly if the answer is correct or not, so to tick the right box.
2. you write the answer on the corrected version of the paper only (not yet possible, as you stated).

I think solution 1 is faster, because when correcting you only have to look at one page at the same time. You see the student wrote Honolulu beside "Cam" question, so you don't give points. Using solution 2, you have to switch your eyes from completed answer sheet to corrected answer sheet and back for each question.

That's also why I think correcting on the paper is faster than correcting on the screen with manual data capture: you don't have to switch from one place to the other for each question to correct.

Anyway I will also try to add a correction hint feature.

In the question pages there still is no area to write the tentative answer

Yes I forgot that point. Perhaps you can redefine \AMCotextGoto?

\def\AMCotextGoto{\par\dotfill\par{\bf\emph{Please write the answer on the separate answer sheet.}}}

The vertical spacing is still a bit big

Yes: the boxes makes the line height greater. Can't you gain a little vertical space reducing the space between boxes from student number, removing "Studentnummer", reducing some other vertical spaces, or reducing a little the boxes size?

I would like to see this text only on the solution sheet.

Since revision r1031, you can use the answer=Yaounde option in AMCOpen. However, this will only be used in corrected answer sheet, not in annotated answer sheets...

I also added in revsision r1032 the boxmargin option to \AMCOpen, that you can use to reduce the margin around boxes for open questions (default value is 3ex).
Perhaps you can also reduce a little the \AMCformVSpace length (default is 1.2ex) to gain extra vertical space in the separate answer sheet.

Alexis Bienvenüe wrote:

For my purpose it would be nice to have a \ifAnswer macror, which I could use to render the {short} answer as hint for the corrector in the solution mode.

How will you correct these tests? Will you look at a corrected answer sheet from the same page each time you correct a page? I'm afraid it can be time consuming. Do you think it would be ok to write a hint for the corrector just before/after the boxes that will be printed on the papers (a hint to remember which question it is, not to remember what is the answer), and then correct the papers on the papers themselves before scanning?

What happens if the student make the area near box C black. Could it be abused as a trick to cheat?

If you use only manual data capture to mark open questions, add option scan=false to AMCOpen so that no data capture will be made for this question.

You mean data capture as in process scanned paper; Checking boxes in the GUI while correcting will still work? Perfect in that case.

Alexis Bienvenüe wrote:

I also added in revsision r1032 the boxmargin option to \AMCOpen, that you can use to reduce the margin around boxes for open questions (default value is 3ex).
Perhaps you can also reduce a little the \AMCformVSpace length (default is 1.2ex) to gain extra vertical space in the separate answer sheet.

I tried setting the length but has no visible effect. I even tried -1.2ex.

You mean data capture as in process scanned paper; Checking boxes in the GUI while correcting will still work?

Yes, that's it (with scan=false).

I added some other options for \AMCOpen in revision r1033. If you want to keep the same sizes as with revision r1032, please use boxframerule=0pt.

I tried setting the length but has no visible effect. I even tried -1.2ex.

\AMCformVSpace=0pt works for me (I can see a difference on the answer sheet). Did you try this command?

Is it possible to set defaults for the \AMCOpen question

Yes, with \AMCopenOpts

\AMCopenOpts{lineup=true,hspace=.5mm,boxmargin=.5ex,
    backgroundcol=white,foregroundcol=white,scan=false}

Alexis Bienvenüe wrote:

Is it possible to set defaults for the \AMCOpen question

Yes, with \AMCopenOpts
[...]

Perfect.

Now the fun department.
I would like to contribute to a set of example exam questions in which all features are shown.
We need silly questions in which we do not leak information about real exams but can showcase and promote AMC to a larger audience.

This would be content for the directory tree doc/modeles/...
Do you/would you like to apply some naming convention?

I would like to contribute to a set of example exam questions in which all features are shown.

Excellent!

Do you/would you like to apply some naming convention?

Hum... I did not think about it yet, so use your own.

• one of a few ones would be shipped with AMC (perhaps with a link to be able to retrieve the others),
• more specialized ones can be published somewhere, for example in the wiki. A model is a tgz file that the user can place in its $HOME/.AMC.d/Models directory.

I have converted my short open questions.
Most of them are easily converted, simply reqrite my \shortanswer macro in terms of \AMCOpen etc.

One question is about 34 characters long, forcing the boxes into the next line, but then in the solution rendering only.
The message I get in the GUI is 2 errors during LaTeX compiling (solution)
Improper alphabetic constant.
Improper alphabetic constant.

Two times, because I render two exams (Dutch and German) in this run.
Maybe you have a tip. Is it possible to truncate a text to say .5\linewidth?

Improper alphabetic constant.

I don't know what this comes from... Please send me your source file if you want me to have a look.

Pieter Van den Hombergh wrote:

I have converted my short open questions.
Most of them are easily converted, simply reqrite my \shortanswer macro in terms of \AMCOpen etc.

One question is about 34 characters long, forcing the boxes into the next line, but then in the solution rendering only.
The message I get in the GUI is 2 errors during LaTeX compiling (solution)
Improper alphabetic constant.
Improper alphabetic constant.

Two times, because I render two exams (Dutch and German) in this run.
Maybe you have a tip. Is it possible to truncate a text to say .5\linewidth?

Using the package truncate, which comes with Tex-Live and is installed by default allows me to put the text and boxes in one line.
So that helps me keeping all questions on one answer sheet.

I will first try to reproduce the problem with a innocent question file, which I then will share.
Just a moment.

Moment is over. The problem has nothing to do with AMC. I tried to had a perl-like regular expression as answer in one of the questions.
These are hard to get right.
I now have a working exam with 60 questions of which 15 are of the type shortopen