Scrambling Multiple-Choice

Answers - The Separator Line

The Problem:

In order to scramble multiple-choice answer choices, you first must be sure that the SCRAMBLE_ANSWERS parameter is in place in your web page's applet tag. However, scrambling multiple-choice answers can be a complicated business. You may write multiple-choice questions which:

can have all choices scrambled. For instance, in the question below the answer choices could appear .in any order:

\MC A B
Who was the first President of the United States?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. George Washington
C. Thomas Jefferson
D. John Adams
E .Benjamin Franklin

should not have any choices scrambled. For instance, if the following question were scrambled it would be disastrous (since the correct answer is "D":

\MC A D
If the momentum of an object changes and its mass 
remains constant, then what else must be happening?
A. its velocity is changing.
B. there is a net force  on it.
C. its speed is changing.
D. both "A" and "B" are true.
E. all of the above are true.

can have all but the last choice scrambled. The following question would still have a correct answer if all of its choices were scrambled, but it would be "odd" to have the "none of these" choice anywhere but as the last choice.
```
\MC A B
Who was the first President of the United States?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. George Washington
C. Thomas Jefferson
D. John Adams
E .none of these
```
can have all but the last two choices scrambled. The following question would still have a correct answer if all of its choices were scrambled, but it would be "odd" to have the "all of these" and "none of these" choice anywhere but as the last choices.
```
\MC A B
Who was the first President of the United States?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. George Washington
C. Thomas Jefferson
D. all of these
E .none of these
```

To sum up, a multiple choice question might, depending on its content, need all of its choices scrambled, none of its choices scrambled, or all but the last (or last two) choices scrambled, and these questions might reasonably be mixed together in the same question file. This is why each multiple-choice question that needs its answer choices scrambled must give AppletQuiz scrambling information in its separator line.

The Solution:

Each multiple-choice question that needs its answers scrambled must include the following tokens in its separator line:

a "B" (or "b") followed by one-or-more blank spaces. (I know that a "B" is not very mnemonic to indicate scrambling, but all of the "good" letters were already taken by the MicroTest program...)
one of the following characters:
- "A" (or "a") to indicate that all answer choices are to be scrambled.
- "1" to indicate that all but the last answer choice is to be scrambled.
- "2" to indicate that all but the last two answer choices are to be scrambled.
- "N" (or "n") to indicate that none of the answer choices are to be scrambled. This has the same effect as having no scrambling token at all, and is the default behavior of the applet.

For Example:

In the following question file, the first question will have all of its answer choices scrambled (the "B A" token in the separator line), the second question will not have any answer choices scrambled (no "B" token - alternatively, this question could have a "B N" token and behave identically), the third question will have all but the last answer choice scrambled (the "B 1" token does this), and the last question will have only the first three answer choices scrambled (the "B 2" token).

\MC A B B A
Who was the first President of the United States?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. George Washington
C. Thomas Jefferson
D. John Adams
E .Benjamin Franklin
\MC A D
If the momentum of an object changes and its mass 
remains constant, then what else must be happening?
A. its velocity is changing.
B. there is a net force  on it.
C. its speed is changing.
D. both "A" and "B" are true.
E. all of the above are true.
\MC A B  B 1
Who was the first President of the United States?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. George Washington
C. Thomas Jefferson
D. John Adams
E .none of these
\MC A B  B 2
Who was the first President of the United States?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. George Washington
C. Thomas Jefferson
D. all of these
E .none of these

This question file is run by the applet below:

You need a Java-enabled browser to take this quiz.

To Summarize:

The applet-tag parameter SCRAMBLE_ANSWERS turns scrambling on/off for the entire question file.

If value= "YES", all multiple-choice questions that have a "B A", "B 1", or "B 2" token in their separator line will be scrambled.
If value="NO", no multiple-choice answers will be scrambled, regardless of the tokens that appear in their separator lines.

last update May 12, 1999 by JL Stanbrough (jstanbro@venus.net)