Online English Tests

[baileyn]

It's time for me to share my endeavours so far 

I've created a few Online English Tests and be warned, they are very much work in progress.

Any criticisms, advice, comments gladly received.

www.options.net.pl

You have to log in (username MB, password mb) as this enables scores to be recorded.

Have fun and let me know what you think!

Regards

Nige

[chris]

It's time for me to share my endeavours so far 

I've created a few Online English Tests and be warned, they are very much work in progress.

Any criticisms, advice, comments gladly received.

www.options.net.pl

You have to log in (username MB, password mb) as this enables scores to be recorded.

Have fun and let me know what you think!

Regards

Nige

Neat! I like your use of the family tree in particular. And I see that scoring too low requires you to retake the test.

Have you considered showing the correct sentences when the score is OK but a few questions were missed? "You can move on, but here is what the sentence should have looked like:..."

Looking good!   

[ingeniousity]

Hi!

And many thanks for creating this excellent software. I've finally got around to putting my first online teaching material together, and the discussions in this forum have been invaluable.

http://www.taiwanchallenges.com/en/tedsol/general/113-life-lessons-from-rock-climbing

This is still an experimental page, and needs modification to the content. I might add another mid-level listening test yet. As you can see, there are four different CSR modules embedded within the page, and everything appears to be working fine. The next thing I have to do is get to work on the score scripts. I think that will be fairly straightforward if I spend some time on it, but I have a question about one issue I didn't see discussed.

At the moment, I can give students feedback on their scores for each individual test. I believe I can use a score script to pass the score from one test to the next when they are daisychained, but what about with my current set-up? There are several different tests on the page, and students may not complete all of them - or in the wrong order.

Is it possible to, for instance, pass the scores from each test to another which will collate them and output a total? I'd appreciate some help on this.

Thanks.

[chris]

Hi!

And many thanks for creating this excellent software. I've finally got around to putting my first online teaching material together, and the discussions in this forum have been invaluable.

http://www.taiwanchallenges.com/en/tedsol/general/113-life-lessons-from-rock-climbing

This is still an experimental page, and needs modification to the content. I might add another mid-level listening test yet. As you can see, there are four different CSR modules embedded within the page, and everything appears to be working fine. The next thing I have to do is get to work on the score scripts. I think that will be fairly straightforward if I spend some time on it, but I have a question about one issue I didn't see discussed.

At the moment, I can give students feedback on their scores for each individual test. I believe I can use a score script to pass the score from one test to the next when they are daisychained, but what about with my current set-up? There are several different tests on the page, and students may not complete all of them - or in the wrong order.

Is it possible to, for instance, pass the scores from each test to another which will collate them and output a total? I'd appreciate some help on this.

Thanks.

ingeniousity,

I'm impressed with your setup.

What you can do is store score data and/or some string to let you know that a given category has been completed.

To do this use <logdata:n>data to save</logdata> in the Score Script for each category, where n is a digit, either 1 or 2.

This will cause whatever is in between the opening and closing tags (the "data to save") to be stored in the Mad Blanks record alongside the user's inputted answers to the test. You can use any Score Script tags there so you can store anything the Score Script can generate.

When you go in the back end and edit a Mad Blanks record that has had this data saved, you will be able to see it in saved in either "Logged Score Script Data 1" or "Logged Score Script Data 2."

When you want to access this data in a different Score Script, you can use the mostrecentlookup tag. This will give you the data most recently entered by or logged for the current user.

To look up the most recently entered data for field 1 in category 3:
[:mostrecentlookup@1,3,userorsession:]

To look up the most recently entered data for field 1 category 11:
[:mostrecentlookup@1,11,userorsession:]

To look up the most recent logged data 1 for category 7:
[:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,7,userorsession:]

To look up the most recent logged data 2 for category 8:
[:mostrecentlookup@scodata2,8,userorsession:]


Then you can take that data and add it up or do whatever you need to do with it in the Score Script. You can potentially use this to tell the user which tests s/he has already taken and which s/he still needs to take.

Note that you can add additional "scodatan" fields to the jos_madblanks_records database table if you want (where n is 3, 4, 5, etc.). You won't be able to access them looking at records on the back end, but they will still be available in Score Scripts.

Please let me know if you need more information or clarification.

[ingeniousity]

  I have only the vaguest idea what any of that means... but it sounds like you're saying to calculate the score and then save some 'flag' for each question set, which is then looked at by another field when you press 'total' the button? And the 'total' button is just an end-of-quiz button in another category?

If so then your answer to my question is basivcally yes and all I have to do is learn how to do score scripts, which looks complicated but I'll figure it out.... If not then put me right.

Chris, I have to say that this is an amazing tool you've built. The applications for this are endess - especially now that it supports non-latin character sets. (I just tried it with Chinese, no problem.)

I'm feeling lazy and I'm too tired to scour the forums, so please answer me another quick question: Can I add a survey/poll-type question (eg do you have plants at home? yes, no, maybe) for which there is no correct answer, and then display the total results for all respondents to date?

Cheers

[chris]

I have only the vaguest idea what any of that means... but it sounds like you're saying to calculate the score and then save some 'flag' for each question set, which is then looked at by another field when you press 'total' the button? And the 'total' button is just an end-of-quiz button in another category?

If so then your answer to my question is basivcally yes and all I have to do is learn how to do score scripts, which looks complicated but I'll figure it out.... If not then put me right.

Chris, I have to say that this is an amazing tool you've built. The applications for this are endess - especially now that it supports non-latin character sets. (I just tried it with Chinese, no problem.)

I'm feeling lazy and I'm too tired to scour the forums, so please answer me another quick question: Can I add a survey/poll-type question (eg do you have plants at home? yes, no, maybe) for which there is no correct answer, and then display the total results for all respondents to date?

Cheers

Essentially you are correct. Each time you submit a Mad Blanks form a Mad Blanks record is saved. You can use logdata tags in the Score Script to set a "flag" of anything you want to go with that record. So it could be a flag that simply says, yes, this person took this particular quiz. Or it could be a score for that particular quiz. You can set two flags by using both logdata:1 and logdata:2.

When you want to add up all the scores later on in a different Score Script, you "look up" the most recent flagged data entered by the current user using the mostrecentlookup tag.


Yes, you can add a survey/poll type question and then display the total results for all respondents to date. You can display how many times each choice was chosen. You can even display a pie chart of what percentage of people chose which option. This is all accomplished with the Score Script's aggregate tag.

See the linked example (Simple Survey on the left hand side).

[ingeniousity]

Hmmm, I'm getting an error message when I include this in the score script:

<logdata:1>[:number_of_correct_answers:]</logdata>

Is there any problem with the format? The error message is makes me think I need to change some setting in my hosting or joomla setup. I bolded the bit that I'm guessing is the problem.

Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() [function.mysql-real-escape-string]: Access denied for user: 'anglochi@localhost' (Using password: NO) in /home/anglochi/www/www/administrator/components/com_madblanks/madblanks.class.php on line 5043

Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() [function.mysql-real-escape-string]: A link to the server could not be established in /home/anglochi/www/www/administrator/components/com_madblanks/madblanks.class.php on line 5043

[chris]

Hmmm, I'm getting an error message when I include this in the score script:

<logdata:1>[:number_of_correct_answers:]</logdata>

Is there any problem with the format? The error message is makes me think I need to change some setting in my hosting or joomla setup. I bolded the bit that I'm guessing is the problem.

Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() [function.mysql-real-escape-string]: Access denied for user: 'anglochi@localhost' (Using password: NO) in /home/anglochi/www/www/administrator/components/com_madblanks/madblanks.class.php on line 5043

Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() [function.mysql-real-escape-string]: A link to the server could not be established in /home/anglochi/www/www/administrator/components/com_madblanks/madblanks.class.php on line 5043

That does seem odd that the database would work normally on the rest of the site and hiccup here.

Note that Mad Blanks version 1.4.0 Beta 2 is now available.

If you get the error again, what happens if you try replacing mysql_real_escape_string in that line of code with $database->getEscaped

[ingeniousity]

Hooha! It works!

I rolled back to MB 1.2.2 and got the same error (different line number) but I'm now soldiering on with 1.4 Beta2 'cos I want the aggregate function.

I'm able to save and retrieve the scores from the database, but am having some logical problem with calculating totals. I'll let you know how I get on.

Cheers

[ingeniousity]

I'm able to save and retrieve the scores from the database, but am having some logical problem with calculating totals. I'll let you know how I get on.

In case anyone else needs to do the same thing, here's what I did. I have several quizzes on one page, which are not daisy-chained, and they mostly use the same score script which also remembers everything using <logdata:1>[:total_points_b:]</logdata>

Then for each page (collection of quizzes) I have added a special 'quiz' which calculates the total score. The quiz is in a category of it's own (unique to that page) and contains only one question. The question is  a radio button type, with no possible answers, resulting in no options being displayed. The instructions to the user in the CSR module are something like 'click here to update your total score' and the CSR module is set to not display any question, clue, or hint. So you just see the instruction and a 'go' button, and the text in the button is 'how am I doing?' or similar.

When they press the button, the score script ignores the (non-existent) answer to the (non-existent) question in that quiz, and instead just displays the most recent scores from the other categories that are relevant to that page, and calculates a total. You could probably use the same approach to intiate just about any other action (including a php script using Jumi) on equest.

<expression:1>[:arithmetic:{[:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,8,userorsession:]}:+:{[:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,9,userorsession:]}:]</expression>

<expression:2>[:arithmetic:{[:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,10,userorsession:]}:+:{[:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,11,userorsession:]}:]</expression>

<expression:3>[:arithmetic:{[:expression:1:]}:+:{[:expression:2:]}:]</expression>

<expression:4>[:arithmetic:{[:expression:3:]}:+:{[:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,12,userorsession:]}:]</expression>

<p>Warm-up -          [:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,8,userorsession:] points out of 10.</p>
<p>Note-taking -      [:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,9,userorsession:] points out of 24.</p>
<p>Language -         [:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,11,userorsession:] points out of 12.</p>
<p>School of Life -    [:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,10,userorsession:] points out of 9.</p>
<p>Writing Practise - [:mostrecentlookup@scodata1,12,userorsession:] points out of 16.</p>

<p><b>Total -         [:expression:4:]</b> out of 71 possible.</p>