The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-386-Vol-2of3.iso/c/cat0301.zip/CAT0301.DOC

Text File | 1991-12-18 | 11KB | 192 lines

 A. Distribution (CAT0301)
    1. If you downloaded CAT0301 from an electronic bulletin board,
       you must UUDECODE it. After uudecoding (if necessary) you
       should have a .ZIP file. Use PKUNZIP to extract the files
       contained in the archive
    2. So, besides UUDECODE, you need to have PKUNZIP. Both of
       these are available from SIMTEL.
    3. After running PKUNZIP, you will have created the following
       files:
       a) CAT0301.EXE
       b) UUDEC.COM (A UUdecode program for decoding gradebooks)
       c) a set of .QSX files which contain questions suitable for
          cloning.

 B. Using CAT0301
    1. CAT0301 is used to create examinations, conduct examinations
       and examine the student grade files. A teacher creates and
       tests questions inside the CAT0301 environment, and then
       transfers the CAT0301 program and suitable questions to a
       student diskette for use in an examination.
    2. CAT0301 is password protected, so that the student can not
       exit the test except by actually quitting. The Original
       Password is "PASSWORD" without the quotation marks (see
       below about changing passwords). Note, however, that the
       files CAT0301 uses are simple uuencoded files (i.e., they
       have been only trivially encrypted). Therefore, students
       should not be allowed to handle their disks alone, as they
       will quickly learn how to uudecode them and peek in the
       files and discover not only the questions, but the answers.
    3. To create a question from scratch, F10 gets you to the menu,
       pull down the File menu, and choose DOSShell. CAT0301 will
       ask you for a password, enter "PASSWORD" (no quotation
       marks). Once in the DOSShell you can call any ASCII editor
       you like to edit a file, giving it an extension of .QSN in
       accord with all other questions currently on the diskette!
       You can not use WordStar, WordPerfect, etc., i.e., you must
       use an ASCII file editor. Suitable ones are EDLIN and EDIT
       (which come with DOS, EDIT is new to DOS 5.0). Word
       processor editors which insert hidden control characters in
       their files are not acceptable to CAT0301, which requires a
       pure ASCII .QSN file.
    4. Later, when you exit CAT0301 (Alt-X will do it), the .QSN
       files will be encoded back into .QSX files (including any
       you may have created). CAT0301 automatically decodes all
       .QSX files on the default drive into .QSN files at startup.
       If you use a name other than .QSN when creating a question,
       the computer will not see it when you go to load it (using
       F2 for New Question)!
    5. When you type "EXIT" (no quotation marks) from the DOS
       prompt while in the DOSShell, you will return to CAT0301.
       Choosing F2 (New Question) you can now bring up the question
       you just created, and "test" it.
            If your question does not appear on the menu, return to
       the DOSShell and check that it has an extension of .QSN. If
       not, rename it appropriately.
            If you "solve" your own test question, it will be
       renamed to .DON while CAT0301 is running, but when you exit
       CAT0301, it will be first renamed to .QSN and then encoded
       to .QSX. You can, in the DOSShell, rename it from .DON to
       .QSN to re-activate the question.

    6. To change passwords, enter the current password with a slash
       and the new password appended (with no spaces), e.g.,
       PASSWORD/NEWKEY
       and verify NEWKEY at the prompt. From that time forth,
       "newkey" will be the password until you type something like:
       newkey/nextkey
       which would now change the password to nextkey.
            If the password has been forgotten, persons adept at
       reading hex dumps of the CAT0301.EXE file can discover the
       password. Otherwise, you should erase all old copies of
       CAT0301 and start over from the original distribution, whose
       password is "PASSWORD". Note that passwords are 8 or less
       characters, case insensitive.

 C. *.QSN files
    1. .QSN files are ASCII files.
    2. .QSN files are always terminated with a line which reads
       "END OF QUESTION" without the quotation marks.
       a) They always consist of an identifier terminating with a
          colon. There will be more fields after the colon.
    3. In the following list of legal commands, blanks are squeezed
       automatically from "i:", "r:", "a:", and "e1:" entries,
       i.e., formulii which contain blanks in the .QSN file will
       have them removed before processing.
    4. The legal prompts are:
       a) c:comment, i.e., c: is the identifier, and whatever follows
          the colon is ignored. This allows you to comment up
          questions for future reference.
       b) p:n i.e., p: is the identifier for places, and governs the
          number of places after the decimal point that you want
          decimal numbers to show. i.e., p:3 would display 4.001234 as
          4.001 (default = 2).
       c) t:n i.e. t: is the identifier for tolerance. When answers
          are submitted to the computer by the student, they must
          agree to 0.001 if n is 3, 0.0001 if n is 4, etc.. (default
          n=3). If the agreement is within 2*tolerance, the computer
          will warn the student once that the accuracy of the student
          answer is suspect, and perhaps with more care the student
          has the correct answer.
       d) q: i.e., q: is the question identifier, and consists of text
          for questions. You can have more than one line of q:. Keep
          them short, less than 80 chars, as otherwise the student
          will have to scoll the window to see the entire question.
          Any variable present in the question ($distance.) will be
          changed into its "value" as determined by the variable
          fields i: and r: (below).
       e) i: and r: are identifiers for variables which must appear
          before everything but p: identifiers. These (i: and r:) have
          two fields separated by a colon. The first has a unique
          identifier, I have used $time., $distance., $atomic_weight.
          etc., and the second has a formula for determining what the
          numerical values of this variable should be. Although not
          mandatory, it is important to use a unique starting and a
          unique ending symbol, i.e., dollar sign and period, to
          delineate the beginning and the end of variables. Otherwise,
          strange substitutions may take place. Examples of
          determining formulii are:
          1) 100
          2) 200+4*RANDOM [this will vary from 200 to 204 depending on
             the random number generated when the test started]
          3) (4*random)+(2) [2<->6]
          4) 6.023-0.1*random [6.023<->6.123]
       f) i: and r: identifiers appear as
          1) i:$value.:400*random + 300
          2) r:$speed.:50.1
          3) r:$distance.:0.003
          4) i:$time.:14
       g) v: is the single variable designator. v:x declares x as the
          variable you wish the student to use. NOTE- your question's
          text better tell the student what the operative variable is,
          as all other characters will be rejected by the computer.
       h) e1: and e21: are error identifiers (e1:) and error response
          identifiers (e21:). e1: has one field, a formula. Only
          variables which have been previously defined are useable.
          You have as many paired error responses as you like.
          Watching student's work the problems will suggest extra
          responses. Examples:
          1) e1:$distance.*$time.
          2) e1:($x.*$x. + $y.*$y. + $z.*$z.)
       i) e2n: error response field is the response the teacher wishes
          to give upon receipt of the incorrect answer given in e1:.
          An example might be:
          e21:Did you forget to divide by 2?
          e22:After all, there are two people in the room!
          Notice that up to 8 lines of text can be displayed, although
          this is rather wordy for an error response.
       j) a:is an answer identifier, giving a formula which is taken
          to be the right answer. An example:
          a:$distance./$time.
          NOTICE that CAT0301 does not implement formula answers, only
          numerical answers, and further, that numbers of the form
          x.yE-zz are not accepted. Make your answers come out with
          reasonable sized numbers.
       k) h:is the help identifier, used if the student hits the F1
          button. There may be more than one of these. Their order is
          the order they will show on the screen. Example:
          h:Distance divided by time is rate.
          h:Therefore, multiply the appropriate items to get the
          h:correct answer.
          The default is no help what so ever.
          NOTICE, the help box is 7 lines long.

 D. Overview of conducting an examination.
    1. Using a clean disk in the A: drive,
       a) copy CAT0301.EXE and CAT0301.OVR to the A: drive,
       b) copy all the questions for the test (*.QSX) to the A: drive.
          They will be renamed to .QSN questions so that the student
          can see them on his question load menu. They will be renamed
          to .DON when the student has completed them. Then, at the
          end of the exam, they will be renamed to .QSN and encoded to
          .QSX.

 E. To look at the results of examinations.
    1. As the student works, his(her) gradebook is maintained in a
       file which has the name {last name}.GD$. This file is a true
       grade book file, which may be manipulated into a class
       register, etc. using any word processor which manipulates
       ASCII text files. At the end of the examination, the
       gradebook is encoded into .GDX. To view the gradebook, you
       can either uudecode it using uudec (enclosed in the
       distribution) or run your own copy of CAT0301 with the
       student's diskette, drop down to the DOS shell, and edit the
       student's .GD$ file using any convenient text editor.
    2. The gradebook file contains every answer given by the
       student, as well as every comment, and every request for
       help. As a result, you can use this file to create
       appropriate help responses, once you have ascertained what
       errors students are making. Noting the error, and then
       interogating the student should lead to understanding of the
       nature of the error, and the appropriate response text.