Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d26/cattest.arc/MAKETEST.LST

File List | 1991-07-01 | 10KB | 177 lines

 A. Once you have created your questions (using MAKEQUES), you
    need to assemble these questions into tests. To achieve this
    purpose, you must run the MAKETEST program. Since there are
    many files involved in the MAKETEST program, it is important
    that you understand what files are going to be used, and
    where they reside. You need the following files or file
    types in your current directory:
    1. PROCTORn.PAS, where n is integer, and refers to the number
       of questions on the examination (for n = 2 thru 9, cloned
       from PROCTOR4.PAS which is included in the distribution).
    2. *.IN1, all the question texts which you intend to use on
       this examination (created using MAKEQUES). INITQUES.IN1 is
       included in the distribution, so that you can see what a
       .IN1 file looks like.
    3. PROTOTYP.PAS (supplied), the shell which you will use for
       most questions for presenting the question to the student,
       accepting and judging the student's answers, reporting on
       the student's diskette what has transpired, etc., etc.. For
       simple questions, each question (.IN1 file) is inserted in a
       copy of PROTOTYP which is renamed to Q1OVR (for question 1),
       Q2OVR for question 2, etc..
    4. The TURBO.EXE compiler, for testing questions, and the
       TPC.EXE command line compiler for creating the final version
       of the test after each question has been debugged.
    5. TURBO.TPL, containing CRT, DOS, and OVERLAY.
    6. TIMESTUF.TPU, EVAL3.TPU, CHECKANS.TPU, UTILITY.TPU,
       UUESTUFF.TPU, WIN.TPU (supplied with source, except for
       WIN.TPU which comes with Turbo Pascal). You must create your
       own WIN.TPU file by compiling WIN.PAS.
    7. TPC.CFG, the configuration file for the Turbo Pascal
       Compiler (supplied).
    8. PROCTORn.MAK, the MAKE file needed by TPC to connect the
       proper questions to the PROCTOR program as overlays.
       PROCTOR4.MAK is supplied with the distribution, and others
       should be cloned as needed using an ASCII text editor.
    9. MTxx.EXE, the current version of MAKETEST (supplied).
   10. PROCTORn.MAK, the appropriate make file for the Compiler.
       The distribution include PROCTOR4, and you can suitably
       alter that to create PROCTOR2, PROCTOR9, etc..
   11. INITGRAD.EXE (supplied), a program for initiating the
       gradebook (called GRADE.BK$) which is supplied to each
       student on his(her) diskette along with the PROCTORn.EXE and
       PROCTORn.OVR files. These three files constitute the entire
       examination.
 B. Therefore, it is reasonable to set up your hard disk to have
    the C:\TP subdirectory containing the TPC (and TURBO.EXE)
    compiler, and C:\TP\CURRENT subdirectory for all the other
    files, with a PATH which points down from \CURRENT to \TP.
    Everything noted above except for the compiler should be
    contained in C:\TP\CURRENT, and once the test has been
    created, the .IN1 files should be stored in a library
    somewhere else (such as C:\TP\OLDQUES), and the test should
    be immediately copied to student diskettes.
 C. Running MAKETEST (called MTxx.EXE) will create temporary
    files QnOVR.PAS which are overlay versions of the questions
    you have called for. These will then be compiled with
    PROCTORn.PAS to create PROCTORn.EXE and PROCTORn.OVR. It is
    these last two files which need to be copied to student
    diskettes along with the GRADE.BK$ file which will contain a
    student password as well as the results of the examination
    after it is completed. Once these two files are intact, the
    QnOVR.PAS files should be deleted!
 D. It is safest to keep MAKEQUES, MAKETEST and INITGRAD in the
    C:\TP directory along with PROCTORn.MAK (see ahead, there
    can be 8 such files, number n=2 thru 9, which you can create
    by altering the PROCTOR4.MAK file which comes in the
    distribution), and TURBO.CFG, so that they are available.
    Assuming that your questions are to be created in the
    C:\TP\CURRENT directory, a PATH of C:\TP is sufficient to
    guarantee this. THEN change directory to C:\TP\CURRENT and
    execute MAKEQUES (typing MQ03 if that is the current value
    of n in MQ0n). Separate documentation on MAKEQUES is
    included. Assuming that this is a four question examination,
    you must create 4 separately named .IN1 files, whose names
    should be meaningful to you. You should also save these
    questions (in .LIB form) so that in case there are errors,
    you can recreate them later. For our purposes, we will call
    them Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, although these names are not useful
    for library purposes, so use more imagination when you do
    this!
    1. Once the questions have been created (.IN1) and saved (.LIB)
       on the C:\TP\CURRENT directory, you are ready to create a
       test. Issue the command MT01 (or MT0n) from the DOS PROMPT.
       Since MAKETEST is a complicated program, it checks that the
       programs listed above exist and can be found, and then
       offers you the ability to abort in case you have doubts that
       you have all the files.
    2. If you proceed, MAKETEST will ask you how many questions
       there will be on the examination. Answer with a number
       between 2 and 9, since that is all I have made provision for
       in this system.
    3. Next, MAKETEST will ask you as many times as there are
       questions
       a) Shall it use PROTOTYP?
       b) What is the name of the .IN1 file for this particular
          question.
    4. For each question, no matter what you have called it,
       MAKETEST will create a QnOVR.PAS file where n is the
       question number. If you altered PROTOTYP to a customized
       driver, at (3a) above you will be given a chance to find
       that program on the disk.
       IMPORTANT-----------------------------------------------
       When asked for a file name, a C(arriage)R(eturn) will take
       the default, a search string such as *.PAS will allow you to
       choose in the current directory out of all (.PAS in this
       case) files, C:\*.* will allow you to go to the root of the
       directory and search up through other branches of the
       directory for the program you seek.
    5. After all questions have been converted to QnOVR.PAS form,
       the MAKETEST program will execute a MAKE instruction (see
       your Turbo Pascal Manual) for the form:
       MAKE -fPROCTORn
       i.e., MAKE -fPROCTOR4,
       where PROCTORn is the name of a .MAK file (i.e.,
       PROCTOR4.MAK).
    6. When the MAKE instruction is executed, you will see the
       Turbo compiler taking all the questions, compiling them, and
       then compiling PROCTORn. If all proceeds without error, you
       will be asked to press <ENTER>, and then the MAKETEST
       program will terminate properly.
    7. On the C:\TP\CURRENT directory will be a set of QnOVR.PAS
       files, a set of QnOVR.TPU files (compiled versions of the
       former), PROCTORn.EXE, and PROCTORn.OVR. These last two
       files must now be copied to the A: disks of your students,
       one disk for each student.
    8. Finally, for each student diskette, you need to run INITGRAD
       and supply a password. This password should also be written
       down and handed to the student with the diskette. Right now,
       there is no more security than this, which prevents other
       students from tampering with each others grades. The only
       way to insure that the student taking the examination is the
       student who should take the examination is to make the
       student identify him(her)self, and then hand back the
       diskette after the (proctored) examination is complete. If
       the diskette leaves the room, there is no knowing the
       identity of the test taker!
    9. To process the student's grades, just run UUDEC, the decoder
       program which is supplied with this system. UUDEC will
       create a GRADEB.OOK text file which can be read with any
       editor. Once you have read (and possibly printed and/or
       copied the GRADEB.OOK file) you should erase it from the
       student's diskette. If the student wishes to continue the
       examination, his grades will be appended to the current
       file, so that a continuous record of student progress will
       be made.
   10. For each question, there is a .SAV file created when the
       student runs the question for the first time. This file
       contains all the variables for each question, so that if a
       student "Quits" either the question or the examination, and
       wishes to return to do the problem at a later time, the same
       numbers will appear in the question. If YOU choose to force
       the student to use different numbers, erase the relevant
       .SAV file from his(her) diskette.
   11. For each question, a .$$$ file is created which contains a
       running record of student responses, including comments and
       wrong answers. This file is UUENCODED at the end of the
       examination, and should be UUDECoded and read by you before
       allowing the student to take the examination again. It
       should also be erased from the student's diskette. This file
       is useful for discovering:
       a) New student errors which you never thought of. This may
          entail asking the student why (s)he made such-and-such
          particular error, but it will allow you to expand the
          repertoire of teacher-created help responses, should you
          choose to expand this question and re-use it at some future
          time.
       b) Errors in the question (or its phraseology) which may be
          misleading students. It is worthwhile preparing questions
          and handing them out as student study assignments, so that
          they can be debugged (by reading these .SAV files). Then,
          clones of these questions can be used on actual examinations
          with modest assurance that the questions are technically
          correct.
          IT IS IMPORTANT to realize that students will be terribly
          unhappy if they submit a correct answer and the computer
          tells them that it is wrong!