Multiple Choice Questions

Multiple choice questions are those in which the reader selects one particular answer out of a list of a (usually) small number of choices. For an example, select here.

The sections of a multiple choice question are shown here.

CHOICES

The CHOICES section lists the possible answers. Its general format is as follows:
	<CHOICES HELP="xxx">
	<CHOICE ANS=a> . . .
	. . .
	<CHOICE ANS=d CORRECT> . . .
	. . .
	</CHOICES>
The HELP="xxx" attribute is optional, and names a help document. If this attribute is given, a link to the help file will be automatically included at the end of the CHOICES section.

Each <CHOICE...> element marks the start of one of the possible choices of answer. The ANS=... attribute is optional, and, if given, provides a label for the choice; if not given, a numeric label will be assigned automatically. The label is displayed automatically in front of each choice. The CORRECT attribute is optional, and, if given, marks this answer as the correct one.

For each of the choices, a list item is generated using the supplied or default label. The labels are hypertext links that the user selects to indicate her choice of answer.

ANSWER

The form of the <ANSWER...> is as follows:
	<ANSWER ANS=l HELP=url>

The ANS=l attribute specifies that l is the label of the correct answer. This is equivalent to specifying the CORRECT attribute in a <CHOICE...> element (see above).

The HELP="url" attribute is optional. If given, it specifies the URL of a help document, and a link to it is automatically included.

RESPONSES

The <RESPONSES> section is optional; it provides the responses that should be displayed after an answer has been given. The format of the <RESPONSES> section is shown here:
	<RESPONSES>
	<WHEN ANS=x> . . .
	. . .
	<WHEN CORRECT> . . .
	. . .
	<WHEN INCORRECT> . . .
	. . .
	</RESPONSES>
The <WHEN...> elements specify the conditions under which the following text is to be displayed as a response.

<WHEN ANS=x> specifies that the following text is to be displayed whenever the user selects label x as an answer.

<WHEN CORRECT> specifies that the following text is to be displayed whenever the user selects the correct answer, and no other WHEN clause has been printed.

<WHEN INCORRECT> specifies that the following text is to be displayed whenever the user selects an incorrect answer, and no other WHEN clause has been printed.

All WHEN elements are optional; if none are given then the RESPONSES section need not be given either. In either case, a suitable default response is provided, giving feedback as to whether the selected answer was correct or not.

HINTS

See the hints section in the general document.