PC-SIG: World of Education

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On-Disk Manual for Test PowWare 1.0 Software Designer Test PowWare Version 1.0 Programmer Kent Crenshaw Copyright 1991 Scott R. Tarbell Computer Science Teacher by Kent Crenshaw Computer Science Student Germantown High School All Rights Reserved University of South Alabama Copyright 1991 To purchase Test PowWare, send $19.95 to Crenshaw Computers Kent Crenshaw P.O. Box 382518 add $5 for shipping and handling Germantown, TN 38183-2518 (see order form for details on using your credit card) An order form can easily be printed from the editor. As a purchaser of Test PowWare, you will receive the following benefits: - A printed manual. * Time saving features and ideas * Quick reference - A good feeling of knowing that you have paid Kent and Scott - Notification of updates and new products to make your life easier. - Input of your ideas to make the next version. - Periodic offers of discounts on other products and new versions. The printed manual has the following features: * Tutorial for all parts of the program. The tutorial includes: 1. A work as you read guide that allows you to work on the computer as you read and learn about the program that is virtually foolproof. 2. Pictures of what the computer screen should look like to keep you from getting lost. * Full explanation of all terms and concepts used in Test Banks with diagrams to help you understand the relationship of Test Banks, individual tests, alternate forms, Exam Test Banks, Exams, multiple- choice scrambling of answer choices, matching, merging, question selection criterion, dumping to the editor, student answer forms, custom answer forms, and all other terms necessary to fully understand and work with this powerful program designed to make test design a breeze. * Time saving features and ideas for creating efficient procedures to help you work with the following topics: 1. Minimize paper usage and time in running off tests. 2. Reduce time spent grading tests. 3. Discourage cheating with alternate forms. 4. Reuse tests from year to year. 5. Create make-up tests. 6. Pop-Quiz questions. 7. Use questions from chapter tests on exams without retyping them. 8. Usage of characters not on the keyboard for mathematics, language, and science. 9. Using the Test Bank with your favorite word processor to take advantage of the powerful features of both. * A full explanation of all the short-cuts available on the keyboard and for mouse users to take full advantage of the powerful methods of moving around in the program and using multiple windows, etc. * A quick reference section listing all the keystrokes and shortcuts. ******************** Test PowWare is a shareware product *************** If you did not send $19.95 to Crenshaw Computer Company then you are evaluating the program. You may have paid $5 to a shareware vendor to receive Test PowWare, however this is not a purchase of the program, it is a fee for sending the disk. (See Restricted licenses to copy in the on-disk manual.) This means that no expensive advertising money was spent to entice you to buy the product; therefore the cost to you is kept low. Shareware allows you to legally give a copy of the program to all your teacher friends to evaluate to see if they like it before having to purchase it.You may evaluate the program for 3 weeks, If you decide to use it you must purchase it or delete all copies you have. Included on this disk is a manual for using the program. We have tried to include everything you will need to evaluate Test PowWare. The printed manual you will receive upon purchase is much more inclusive but would require a special program to print it and occupy over 7 disks because of the included screen pictures. ************************************************************************** System Requirements for Test PowWare: · An IBM PC, XT, AT, PCjr or 100% software compatible computer · MS-DOS or PC-DOS version 3.0 or later · 384 Kilobytes of RAM (Built-in editor requires 512 Kilobytes) · At least one floppy or hard disk · A monochrome or color monitor with a monochrome or color interface supporting 80 column displays with 25 lines. Current standards supported include, but are not limited to MGA, CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, SVGA, TVGA, and Tandy 16-color monitors. · A printer is optional, but tests cannot be printed on paper without one. We recommend an Epson-compatible printer, but others will also work with Test PowWare. · 150 Kilobytes of available disk space plus additional disk space for individual tests. Installation and Setup Information for Test PowWare: To install Test PowWare on a floppy disk: 1. Turn on your computer and load DOS as you normally do. 2. Place the Test PowWare diskette in drive A or B. 3. Place a blank, formatted diskette in the drive not containing the Test PowWare diskette. 4. If the Test PowWare diskette is in drive A, type A: (and press Enter) If the Test PowWare diskette is in drive B, type B: (and press Enter) 5. If the blank diskette is in drive B, type Install B: (and press Enter) If the blank diskette is in drive A, type Install A: (and press Enter) 6. When asked to do so, press any key. To install Test PowWare on a hard disk: 1. Turn on your computer and load DOS as you normally do. 2. Place the Test PowWare diskette in drive A or B. 3. If the Test PowWare diskette is in drive A, type A: (and press Enter) If the Test PowWare diskette is in drive B, type B: (and press Enter) 4. Type Install followed by the drive and directory in which you want to install Test PowWare. (and press Enter) Example: Install C:\TestPowr 5. When asked to do so, press any key. ** Note: If you are running Test PowWare on a laptop or notebook computer or a computer with a monochrome monitor and color card, the screen will be much more readable if you type MODE BW80 before running Test PowWare. Sorry, but 40 column screens are not supported by this version. Restricted License to Copy: Test PowWare is distributed under the ShareWare concept. This gives you, the user, the right to make copies of Test PowWare (the disk) and give them to your friends or acquaintances provided that you follow a few simple rules: 1. No fee may be charged for this program. You may charge a distribution fee to cover shipping, handling, and disks of up to five (5) dollars in United States currency. 2. The program may be used for up to three (3) weeks before being registered with Crenshaw Computer Company. After the three (3) week trial period, you must either register the product of delete all copies of it in your possession. 3. No program or documentation file may be omitted or modified in any way. 4. The printed manual you receive upon purchase is protected under a separate copyright and may not be copied by anyone without written permission from Crenshaw Computer Company. 5. Test PowWare may not be distributed as part of a larger, more inclusive package. 6. Test PowWare may not be rented or leased. 7. The following rules apply to distributing Test PowWare using asynchronous communications (through modems): a. An error checking protocol such as X-Modem must be used. b. All program and documentation files must be transmitted as a single library file. It is recommended that this be done using PKZip, LHArc, or some equivalent archiving software. 8. If the program is distributed to students in a classroom, you must provide the following written notice: Crenshaw Computer Company is proud to let you as a student and future teacher evaluate this software. No royalty or registration fee has been paid for the programs. However, after use as a student you must purchase a registered copy or erase your copies.You will receive a manual and notification of new releases . We intend to greatly improve upon this already outstanding product in the near future and know that you will not want to miss out. To purchase Send $19.95 to: Crenshaw Computer Company P.O. Box 382518 Germantown, TN 38183-2518 An order form can easily be printed from the editor while in tp. About our products: Test PowWare is the only one of these products that is shareware. Test PowWare SAF : This is a collection of student answer forms for almost every conceivable situation. It would take you hours to produce them on your own. Save time, paper and the environment by using them. Test PowWare Video: This is a VHS video recording approximately 15 min. long. It shows the many features available with Test PowWare. It is not however a tutorial but is excellent for viewing at in-service meetings or as a class- room tool for college classes. Flash PowWare+: This is a computer flash card program designed to make learning the addition facts a fun game. It allows you to choose which numbers to work with ( 0-12 ) and how many flash cards to be presented. It keeps track of time so you can make a race out of it and keep trying to better your previous times. It keeps the top scores along with which problems were attempted so the teacher or parent can see the progress. It is excellent for individual or classroom use. Flash PowWare-, Flash PowWarex, Flash PowWare÷, these are the same as the addition above except for subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. Flash PowWare4 : Save by buying all four programs at once. Flash PowWare3 : If you want to try one and then get the other three you can still save. Scan PowWare IBM : A test scoring program for the Scan-tron 1200 OMR Data terminal for IBM or compatibles. Quickly grade one or two answer keys tests and print out the scores in grade book order. Student coupons can be printed. Scan PowWare mod4 : A test scoring program for the Scan-tron 1200 OMR Data terminal for the Radio Shack Model 3 or 4. Quickly grade one answer key tests and print out the scores in grade book order. Student coupons can be printed along with some statistics. About the Author and Programmer Kent Crenshaw is a computer Science teacher at Germantown High School in Germantown TN. He has worked on micro- computers since the first IBM hit the market. He teaches several programming languages along with college courses on DOS, spreadsheet, database, and word processor. After struggling with word processors and databases all these years trying to make them do what they were not designed for "making out test", he decided to write a state of the art test bank with all the features he always wanted. Lacking the time to do the programming himself he convinced an extremely talented student Scott Tarbell to write the program according to his instructions in the best language available to make the program very user friendly. After many hours Test PowWare is the results. Getting started: Load the program type TP then Enter. Perhaps the easiest way to get started is to view an example test bank. To do this you must first open the example testbank called THISTEST. Follow these steps: Keys to press or type Action taken by the program F3 brings up Open Test bank dialog box THISTEST Type in the name of the Test bank Enter Pressing the enter key loads the test bank and displays the name on the second line F8 Brings up the Modify Question dialog box N or P lets you browse through the items in the test Notice which items are marked Heading, Extension or Matching as this will affect how they are printed in the test. Items that are marked Heading or Extension are not given question numbers. Questions marked matching have the correct answer printed with an (A) through (Z) letter choice before the questions marked as matching. To view an existing test follow these steps: Keys to press or type Action taken by the program Shift-F3 brings up Editor file type dialog box Enter pressing Enter brings up an Open Editor box THISTEST Type in the name of the Test (same as TB but with a different extension). Enter Pressing the enter key loads and displays the test and displays the key at the same time Use the arrow keys to move through the test and look at it. Take note of the items from the test bank and how they were treated depending on how they were marked. Try creating a test from the test bank by dumping to the editor. Follow these steps: Alt-T Hold down the Alt key and strike the T key This brings up the test bank menu D Press D for Dump to the Editor. This brings up the Save box THISTST1 Give the test a new name. Enter Accepts the new name and brings up the Dump Options box Enter Accepts the options and displays a copy of the editor and the answer key. Alt-F3 Hold down the Alt key and strike the F3 key This closes the editor window with the test. Alt-F3 Hold down the Alt key and strike the F3 key This closes the editor window with the answer key You are now ready to create a test bank and test of your own. Choose New from the Test Bank menu (Alt-F3). Give it a name. Then F7 will let you begin inputing items. Ok accepts the items (Alt-K). When you finish the last one, Esc from the next input box after the Ok. Do a dump to the editor and print (Alt-P) the test. You may want to set some of the options for printing before you print. There is a list of all the menu items and their functions that follows. The bottom line of the screen shows hot keys as they are in effect. Parts of the program: The Menubar: Press F10 to activate the menubar. One of the menu names should be highlighted. Using the cursor control (arrow) keys, select the menu that contains the function you wish to perform. Then simply press Enter to activate a submenu or function. A list of these functions follows. Mouse users can simply click the left mouse button when the mouse cursor is positioned on the item. All items have shortcut keys (highlighted) that can be pressed to activate them when the menu they are in is activated. Some items have hot keys (in black next to the item name) that can be pressed to activate them at any time. Items followed by three period (...) will open a dialog box. Items followed by an arrow will open a submenu. ≡..................Application menu contains the following items: About..................Displays the opening screen. Change Colors..........Changes the active color palette to one of five: Standard, Extra, Gray Scales, Monochrome, Laptop. Also, turns markers on or off. Show Free Memory.......Displays the amount of memory available to the Test Bank. Each question occupies about 500 bytes of memory, and 5000 bytes are needed to display the dialog boxes. System.............System menu contains the following items: Change Dir............Changes the active disk drive or directory. DOS Shell.............Exits temporarily to DOS while leaving Test PowWare in memory. Use this mainly for formatting diskettes, creating directories, or other disk maintenance. Exit..................Exits from Test PowWare, freeing memory for other applications. You will be given a chance to save all unsaved test banks and editors before exiting. Test Bank..........Test Bank menu contains the following items: Open..................Loads a test bank from the disk to memory. New...................Starts a new test bank. Save..................Writes the current test bank to the disk. Save as...............Writes the current test bank to the disk using a different filename, useful for creating similar test banks or backup copies. Close.................Removes the test bank from memory. New Question..........Inserts a question into the test bank. This is the only way to enter questions. Modify Question.......Use this if you want to delete or alter questions. This is the only way to change questions that already exist. Dump to Editor File...Writes questions from the test bank in a format that the editor or your own word processor can read. This is standard ASCII format. The test bank cannot print tests, only the editor an do this. Editor.............Editor menu contains the following items: Open..................Loads a file from the disk. More than one file may be loaded at one time. New...................Allows you to create a new editor file. Save..................Saves the active editor window (has double line border) Save As...............Saves the active editor window (has double line border) using a new name. This is useful for placing a file on multiple disks or making backup copies. Close.................Closes the active editor window (has double line border) and gives you an opportunity to save the file if changes have been made. Edit..................Opens the edit submenu containing the following: Cut.....................Moves marked text to the clipboard. This will delete the text in the active window and place it in the clipboard where it will be marked. Copy....................Copies marked text to the clipboard without deleting in the active window. Paste...................Copies the text marked in the clipboard to the active window at the cursor position. Show Clipboard..........Displays the clipboard window (window number 1) Undo....................Undoes the last typing or deletion. This applies only if the cursor has not moved since the text was typed or deleted. Search................Opens the search submenu containing the following: Find....................Searches for text and moves the cursor to the first occurrence of the search criteria. Replace.................Searches for text and replaces it with new text. This can be used to replace one occurrence or all occurrences. Repeat Last Search......This repeats the last requested find operation. Print..............Print menu contains the following items: Editor................Prints the active editor window to the printer. This may cause errors if the printer is not connected to the first parallel port (LPT1). Options...............Sets the page length and margins. Window.............Window menu contains the following items: Size / Move...........Changes the size or position of the active window. Zoom..................Expands the active window to occupy the entire desktop, or, if already zoomed, restores the active window to its previous size and position. Tile..................Arranges all windows so that they do not overlap. Cascade...............Arranges all windows so that they are shown with only the title and number of each window visible. Next..................Deactivates the active window without closing it and activates the next window (the ordering of windows is the order in which they were last selected). Previous..............Deactivates the active window without closing it and activates the previous window. Close.................Closes the active window (same as close in the editor menu). Mode...............Mode menu contains the following items: Merger................If no editor windows are open and the test bank is saved, this will exit the test bank / editor mode and enter the merger, where exam test banks can be made using questions from existing test banks. Test Bank / Editor....Exits the merger and returns to test bank / editor mode. If the Exam Test Bank or the Source Test Bank have been modified and not saved, you will be given an opportunity to save them. Source Test Bank...Source Test Bank menu contains the following items: Open..................Loads a source test bank from disk. Save..................Saves changes to the selection criterion field of questions in the source test bank. Select................Allows you to change the selection criterion field of questions in the source test bank. Exam Test Bank.....Exam Test Bank menu contains the following items: Open..................Loads an exam test bank from disk. New...................Starts a new exam test bank. Save..................Saves the exam test bank to disk. Save As...............Saves the exam test bank to disk using a different filename, useful for creating similar exam test banks or making backup copies. Set Type..............Chooses the selection criterion that will decide what questions are added from the source test bank. Transfer...........Transfers the questions whose selection criterion match the type of the exam. Question Dialog Boxes (New, Modify, and Select Question): The Question Dialog Boxes are the only way to add or edit questions in the test bank. F7 is the hot key for New Question, and F8 is the hot key for Modify Question. Pressing these keys, or selecting the options from the Test Bank menu will open a Question Dialog Box. In this dialog box, as in all the others, you can change the selected item by holding down the ALT key while pressing the highlighted letter of the name of the item you wish to select. As an alternative, you may press Tab or Shift-Tab to move to the next or previous item. To change the setting of a check box, press the spacebar. Item no..........................This input line accepts only numeric input, and its value is used to sort the questions, headings, and extensions. By changing the number, you can insert questions between existing questions in the test bank. The initial value of this input is ten greater than the last value typed in it, allowing you to ignore it while typing in a test and leaving space to insert questions later. Exempt from Answer Scrambling....Marking this box will prevent Test PowWare from scrambling the multiple-choice answers on the question, even if answer scrambling is selected when the test bank is dumped to an editor file. Do not scramble answer choice E..Marking this box will leave the E answer in the last position when scrambling. Note that the answer must be in the E position even if there is no D answer. In this case Test PowWare will change to E to a D when dumping to an editor file automatically. Heading..........................Marking this box will identify the item as a heading, and it will not be given a question number when the test bank is dumped to an editor file. Extension........................Marking this box will identify the item as an extension to the previous question. The item will not be preceded by a blank line and will not have a question number. When using extensions, place the correct answer on the first question, and the answer choices on the last item. Make sure that these items are exempt from answer scrambling. Item (Question, Etc.)............Type the question or heading in this input line. You have only three lines, but may get more by using an extension. The text will be automatically word-wrapped at the end of each line. Press F9 for a standard size blank for fill-in-the-blank questions. Answer Choices (A,B,C,D,E).......Type the answer choices for multiple choice questions here. Press one of the hot keys listed on the status line at the bottom of the screen for often-used answer choices. If an answer choice is blank, it will not be used when dumped to the editor file, and the letters of the other answer choices and correct answer will be adjusted. Correct Answer...................Type the correct answer here. Selection Criterion..............Press the spacebar to mark the exam types you wish to have this item included in. See the complete manual for more details on Exams and Exam Test Banks. Matching.........................Mark this check box if the item is a matching question. You may have only twenty-six items in a series of matching questions, if you need more, separate it into two sets by inserting a blank item with extension marked and matching unmarked. Next.............................Press the spacebar or Alt-N to jump to the next question in the test bank. Note that this button does not exist in New Question. Prev.............................Press the spacebar or Alt-P to jump to the previous question in the test bank. Note that this button does not exist in New Question. Ok...............................Press the spacebar or Alt-K to accept the changes to this question and store them in the test bank. Cancel...........................Press the spacebar or Esc to close the question dialog box without saving the changes to the current question. This is the only way to close the New Question Dialog Box. Delete...........................Press the spacebar to delete this question and jump to the next question in the test bank. Note that this button only exists in Modify Question. File dialog boxes: When opening an existing test bank or editor file, a file dialog box will open asking for the file you wish to open. As in other dialog boxes, you may move between items by press Alt and the highlighted letter of the item, or by pressing tab or shift-tab. The default item is the filename input line. Here, you may type the name of the file you wish to use, or press the down arrow key to see a history list of the filenames you have used in the past. By pressing tab you will be in the list box containing name of files that are available. Use the cursor control (arrow) keys to move the highlighting bar to other filenames, and press enter to record to name of the file in the input line. At the bottom of the dialog box is an information pane that displays the name and size of the file as well as the date and time it was last modified. Dump Options Dialog Box: When Dumping a test bank to an editor file, a file dialog box will appear for the filename and will be followed by a Dump Options dialog box. As in other dialog boxes, you may move between items by press Alt and the highlighted letter of the item, or by pressing tab or shift-tab. The answer choice order scrambling (ACOS) check box is marked by default. If you do not wish to scramble the order of multiple choice answers, unmark this box. The question radio buttons allow you to dump all of the questions in the test bank or only those whose selection criterion field matches the one you will set in the next dialog box (which only appears if Select is marked here). The starting number input line accepts only numeric values and contains the value of the first question number to use when creating the text file. This number will be assigned to the first question dumped and is incremented by one for each additional question. Print Options Dialog Box: The print options dialog box contains five input lines, four for the margins and one for the question prefix. The question prefix is used only when dumping to an editor file. The margins are used only when printing an editor file. For more details on the settings for the margins, see the complete manual. Editor Keys: MOVEMENT COMMAND KEY OR KEYS Word left Ctrl-A or Ctrl-Left Arrow Word right Ctrl-F or Ctrl-Right Arrow Character left Ctrl-S or Left Arrow Character right Ctrl-D or Right Arrow Line Up Ctrl-E or Up Arrow Line Down Ctrl-X or Down Arrow Page Up Ctrl-R or Page Up Page Down Ctrl-C or Page Down Line Start Ctrl-Q S or Home Line End Ctrl-Q D or End Text Start Ctrl-Q R or Ctrl-Page Up Text End Ctrl-Q C or Ctrl-Page Down BLOCK COMMAND KEY OR KEYS Start Select Ctrl-K B Copy Block Ctrl-K K or Ctrl-Insert Paste Block Ctrl-K C or Shift-Insert Cut Block Shift-Delete Clear Block Ctrl-Delete Unselect Block Ctrl-K H SEARCH COMMAND KEY OR KEYS Search Ctrl-Q F Replace Ctrl-Q A Repeat Search Ctrl-L INSERT AND DELETE COMMANDS KEY OR KEYS Toggle Insert Mode Ctrl-V or Insert Toggle AutoIndent Ctrl-O Backspace Ctrl-H or Backspace Delete Character Ctrl-G or Delete Delete Word Ctrl-T Delete Line Ctrl-Y Delete to Line Start Ctrl-Q H Delete to Line End Ctrl-Q Y Undo typing/insert/delete Ctrl-U Insert 8 spaces Tab Insert 9 underscores (_) Ctrl-F7 Insert 'a b c d e' Ctrl-F8 Insert Lines for Essays Ctrl-F9 Test Bank Keys: (Valid in New or Modify Question) COMMAND LOCATION KEY Insert 15 underlines Question F9 Insert 'TRUE' Answer Ctrl-F1 Insert 'FALSE' Answer Ctrl-F2 Insert 'All of the above' Answer Ctrl-F3 Insert 'None of the above' Answer Ctrl-F4 Miscellaneous Keys: (Valid while not in a dialog box) COMMAND KEY OR KEYS Quit to DOS Alt-X Open Test Bank F3 Save Test Bank F2 Open Editor Shift-F3 Save Editor Shift-F2 Close Editor Alt-F3 New Question F7 Modify Question F8 Move/Size Editor Window Ctrl-F5 Zoom Editor Window F5 Select Next Editor Window F6 Select Previous Editor Window Shift-F6 Activate Menu F10