CLUB 100 Library - 415/939-1246 BBS, 937-5039 NEWSLETTER, 932-8856 VOICE
"Scholar Reviews" and STUDY Copyright 1987 by David Dunn Thomas
All rights reserved - Distributed under the "Shareware" concept.
Revised 6-03-87 to permit True/False questions.
S C H O L A R D O C U M E N T A T I O N
STUDY is a program that enables students to review information or
study it for the first time as the program utilizes lessons on file, either
RAM, Tandy portable disk drive, or Chipmunk drive to provide questions,
additional information, and the correct answers. The program is only 3,365
bytes in Basic format; the lessons may have up to 100 questions depending on
the amount of review data provided. Dozens of lessons could be prepared and
stored on one disk, or in one folder of a Chipmunk disk, to access for one
STUDY session.
The important feature of Scholar Reviews is the built-in review
capability of the program. Whenever the student selects an incorrect answer,
information is promptly provided that includes the correct answer to the
question though not necessarily in the same, exact words. Further, when the
question is correctly answered, learning is enhanced by having the answer
repeated. The answer may be repeated in the same phraseology or differently
from that of the question. All of these variations are created via the correct
formatting of the Scholar Review lesson file.
The "Scholar Reviews" program, STUDY.BA, is simplicity itself for the
student to operate for purposes of either learning or reviewing a lesson. The
more difficult and painstaking operation is the preparation of the lesson
files for the Scholar to make proper us of STUDY. This file explains use of the
program as well as preparation of the lesson files.
Using STUDY.BA:
When STUDY is initialized, the student is asked for the lesson they
wish to review and then whether the lesson file is in RAM or on disk. If the
file does not exist, the user is dropped out of the program with an
appropriate advisory message. If the file does exist, but is not in proper
Scholar Review format, the student will be dropped out of the program either
immediately or later in the review if there is incorrect formatting in the
question/answer phase of the program.
Once embarked, the student will have a series of multiple choice
questions - each provides four choices. The reviewer is never told that he is
wrong; rather, if he makes an error he is provided with the correct
information and then asked the same question again. When the question is
answered properly, the answer is returned to the student - optionally in a
different format.
Example:
President of U.S. during World War I:
1) Woodrow Wilson
2) Jack Pershing
3) John Rockefeller
4) Benjamin Franklin
?
If an incorrect response is chosen, then the screen displays:
Pershing, Franklin, and Rockefeller
were never President of the U.S., but
Wilson served from 1913-1921.
With the correct response, the display is:
Correct!
Woodrow Wilson
was President in W. W. I, 1914-1918
Note that lesson formatting provides for INSTRUCTING the student
instead of merely drilling. That is one of the principal strengths of the
"Scholar Review" concept, if well executed!
For some idea of the capabilities of Scholar Reviews, run STUDY with
the LESSON.DO file from this Library loaded into either RAM or disk. There are
only thirteen questions in the file, but sufficient to show the flexibility of
the Scholar Review concept. The program STUDY does NOT have to be modified in
any way as long as the lesson files are formatted as STUDY expects them.
Lesson file preparation:
First line of the file MUST contain three items separated by commas:
| - Essential Scholar identifier
n - The number of questions in the lesson
xxx - The title of the lesson - no more than 38 characters
Example:
|,75,Olympic Games
Indicates there are 75 questions in a lesson on the Olympics.
Thereafter, EACH record must contain either six or ten items (depending
upon type of question) separated by commas; these may be enclosed in quotes if
textual material, but the quotes are MANDATORY for the last item - otherwise
needed only if the text contains numeric information.
Format for Multiple Choice questions:
1) n - The number of the ANSWER to the question (1 to 4)
2) | - Essential Scholar identifier
3) xxx - The question, no more than 38 characters
4) xxx - Possible answer, no more than 35 characters
5) - same
6) - same
7) - same
8) n - Response type identifier; 0 if no change in answer
1 if the answer is rephrased
9) xxx - Alternate answer phraseolgy if item 8 is 1
a single letter if item 8 is 0
10) xxx - Text of the information to be displayed when an incorrect answer
has been chosen; may be up to 160 characters including spaces
Examples:
3,|,Which listed is a continent?,United States of America,Washington
D.C.,Africa,Great Britain,1,is one of the continents.," The seven continents of the world are North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia,
and Antarctica."
In the above, the "1" following "Britain" indicates that the answer
will be returned with different phraseology than the question.
2,|,John Adams was the nation's first,Treasurer,Vice President,President,Chief
Justice,0,a," Later President, and father of another President, John Adams
was also the first Vice President of the new nation."
Here the question is used for the answer phrase, so "0,a" follows the
word "Justice."
Format for True/False questions:
1) n - The number of the ANSWER to the question: 1 = False, 2 = True
2) ~ - Essential Scholar identifier
3) xxx - The statement, no more than 38 characters
4) n - Response type identifier; 0 if no change in answer
1 if the answer is rephrased
5) xxx - Alternate answer phraseolgy if item 4 is 1
a single letter if item 4 is 0
6) xxx - Text of the information to be displayed when an incorrect answer
has been chosen; may be up to 160 characters including spaces
Composing records:
Assuming that one has a ready source of questions and answers, perhaps
the trickiest portion of lesson preparation is composing the last item,
supplementary information. Note that the information in the above examples is
enclosed in quotation marks; this is to preserve the leading space for a good
format, but also because it is ESSENTIAL for proper operation of the program.
The other spaces in the data are needed to get the well formatted display seen
when the program is run.
Tip: Prepare the entire record by starting in BASIC! Decide on the
correct answer and type it, the comma, the proper identifier (| or ~), the
comma, and the question. Then use the EDIT command to compose remainder of
questions, answer(s), and review information. This procedure enables typing of
precisely the format desired with no concern about spacing as can happen in
TEXT mode. Finally, "Cut" or "Copy" the record into the paste buffer and exit
the EDIT mode; proceed to TEXT work file for the lesson and "Paste" the record
in place.
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6-03-87
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The STUDY program, sample LESSON.DO, and this file are distributed
under the "Shareware" concept and are not in the Public Domain. Any person
that makes use of the program commits themself to making a suitable
contribution depending upon the number of persons assisted. Any lessons
developed and distributed must have the Copyright notice found at the
conclusion of LESSON.DO in this Library.
Comments, questions and contributions may be directed to the author:
