Once again, I’ve got a post based on a fairly common question sent in to the Carmen team this week. The question revolves around how to set up quiz questions so they can be autograded and award points correctly.
The key to doing this is to think first about which of the various answer options are correct, and then later, think about how many points any particular quiz question is worth. Essentially, identifying the correct answer is part of creating the question, while assigning a points value is part of creating the quiz.
When you create a new quiz question (in the Question Library or a specific quiz), you have the option to assign a points value for the question. I suggest you ignore this option; just leave the default value of 1. You might note that if you go back to edit a question, this “points” box is no longer available — yet more evidence that setting the point value is more about the quiz than the question.
The points box is only available when creating a new question
After you’ve written your question text and your answer options, identify the correct answer by putting 100 in the “weight” box. This means that a student who selects that answer will receive 100% of however many points the question ends up being worth. If you have entered an answer option that you want to award partial credit for, enter a value less than 100 in that weight box. For instance, for a answer worth half credit, enter 50 (for 50% credit).
In the case of quiz questions, the weight is related to the correctness of any particular answer, not to the question as a whole.
You must have one answer with a weight of 100
Note that not all question types have a “weight” box to indicate the correct answer. Question types like Ordering and Matching use more of an “all or nothing” approach.
Once all of your questions are written and assembled into your quiz in the Layout / Questions tab, click on the Edit Values button to set the points value for each question. The Edit Values button also lets you select which, if any, questions are bonus questions and whether you have any mandatory questions.
After clicking Edit Values, you can set various options
Now, the follow up question is almost always how to make Carmen assign the correct points for quiz attempts that were based on the weights not having been set up correctly. And I’ll answer that in the next post.
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Carmen Quizzes: Weighty Thoughts on Points and Correct Answers
Once again, I’ve got a post based on a fairly common question sent in to the Carmen team this week. The question revolves around how to set up quiz questions so they can be autograded and award points correctly.
The key to doing this is to think first about which of the various answer options are correct, and then later, think about how many points any particular quiz question is worth. Essentially, identifying the correct answer is part of creating the question, while assigning a points value is part of creating the quiz.
When you create a new quiz question (in the Question Library or a specific quiz), you have the option to assign a points value for the question. I suggest you ignore this option; just leave the default value of 1. You might note that if you go back to edit a question, this “points” box is no longer available — yet more evidence that setting the point value is more about the quiz than the question.
The points box is only available when creating a new question
After you’ve written your question text and your answer options, identify the correct answer by putting 100 in the “weight” box. This means that a student who selects that answer will receive 100% of however many points the question ends up being worth. If you have entered an answer option that you want to award partial credit for, enter a value less than 100 in that weight box. For instance, for a answer worth half credit, enter 50 (for 50% credit).
In the case of quiz questions, the weight is related to the correctness of any particular answer, not to the question as a whole.
You must have one answer with a weight of 100
Note that not all question types have a “weight” box to indicate the correct answer. Question types like Ordering and Matching use more of an “all or nothing” approach.
Once all of your questions are written and assembled into your quiz in the Layout / Questions tab, click on the Edit Values button to set the points value for each question. The Edit Values button also lets you select which, if any, questions are bonus questions and whether you have any mandatory questions.
After clicking Edit Values, you can set various options
Now, the follow up question is almost always how to make Carmen assign the correct points for quiz attempts that were based on the weights not having been set up correctly. And I’ll answer that in the next post.