INSTRUCTIONS FOR IMPORTING, EXPORTING AND RE-IDING QUESTIONS
MakeTest 2.0 allows you to import questions into the Question Editor and export tests from the Test Editor. These techniques are not explained in the tutorial, because the length of TeachText documents is limited.
EXPORTING
You can export questions, titles and instructions from a test file by choosing Export from the File menu. This will place the question and any answer choice text into a text-only (also called ASCII) file that can be opened by any word processing program. Titles and instructions can be exported; graphics cannot be exported. Questions are numbered and answer choices are labeled, but MakeTest 2.0 currently uses a default format and doesn’t pay attention to the options selected in the printing options dialog. Tabs are inserted in appropriate locations in the text file, but you will have to set up the tabs on the ruler in the word processing program to produce an acceptable layout. If you are using a program that supports styles (such as Microsoft Word), you can create a different style for the question and answer choice formats. If you create styles you can reapply them to different paragraphs (any text that is terminated by a carriage return character). In Word, you can use Command-A to redo the last command again, and this is a convenient way to reapply styles to multiple paragraphs.
IMPORTING
MakeTest 2.0 allows you to import questions saved in a special format. Thus if you have questions previously typed in a word processing program you can import them into MakeTest by following these steps:
1) Use your word processing program to format the questions in the special format described below.
2) Save the specially formatted questions as a text-only file.
3) Import the text-only file into MakeTest 2.0.
• Special format for importing questions
There should be at least one blank line before the first question. There should be no line breaks (paragraph symbols) within a question or answer choice, except in multiple-choice questions. If you have free-response, true/false or fill-in questions containing more than one paragraph or containing a carriage return within the question, replace the paragraph symbol with some character not used elsewhere in the file (such as ^). Once the file is imported into MakeTest, you can then search for this character and replace the line breaks.
In multiple-choice questions, a paragraph symbol should appear at the end of the question stem (that is, before answer choice a). Answer choices should be formated as a letter, followed by a period, followed by one space, followed by the text of the answer choice. One return should be typed at the end of each answer choice. Questions and answers can be as long as you like (e.g., several lines long if necessary).
Answers to multiple-choice questions should be the letter of the correct answer choice, immediately followed by a return (paragraph symbol). In other words, there should be no spaces after the answer (if there are extra spaces, the question may be skipped). Answers to true/false questions should be T or F. After preparing your file in the format below, you will need to save as Text Only. Therefore, styled text such as bold, superscript, italics, or underlining in the original file will not remain styled in the MakeTest file.
Here is an example of text in the format necessary for importing into MakeTest 2.0:
What you enter: Explanation:
>T Means type will follow.
M Indicates multiple-choice.
>Q Means a question will follow.
Personal property, by definition, must be: Question text (you need 1 space
a. property owned by natural persons between each answer choice
b. property owned by one individual label and answer)
c. property which is not defined as real property
d. all of the above
>A Means answer will follow.
c Indicates choice c is correct one.
>D Means difficulty will follow.
H Means difficulty level is harder.
1 blank line between questions.
>T
F Indicates fill-in
>Q
On a clear day the sky is __________.
>A
blue Answers can be any length.
>D
I Means difficulty is intermediate.
>T
T Indicates true/false.
>Q
There are many varieties of roses.
>A
T Means “true.” (F means “false.”)
>D
E Indicates difficulty is easier.
If you are importing free-response questions, the question type following > T should be E (for essay, which is what free-response questions were formerly called).
• Using a macro program to enter the codes
You can use a macro program such as QuicKeys to enter these codes quickly. For example, if all your questions are multiple-choice, you can make a quick key for entering:
>T
M
>Q
If you generally have just four answer choices, you can make four more quick keys, one for when a is correct, one for when b is correct, etc., such as:
>A
a
You can make three quick keys for difficulty level as well, such as:
>D
E
or if all your questions are the same difficulty, you can include the difficulty level in the answer quick keys, such as:
>A
a
>D
I
• Importing specially formatted files
After you have created a file formatted as above, here is how you import the file into MakeTest.
1) Save the file as “text-only” or ASCII text.
2) Open a MakeTest question file or create a new question file. A MakeTest question file must be open in order for importing to work.
3) Choose “Import File” from the File menu (or type Command-Y).
4) Select the file you want to import from the scrollable list which appears.
5) Click Open. You will then see a dialog indicating how many questions MakeTest is reading in. MakeTest will create a new file for the imported questions.
6) Browse through the file to see if all the questions are there and were imported correctly.
If one or more questions were skipped, open the file you formatted with your word processing application. If necessary, remove any paragraph returns in the skipped question, remove any spaces following the answer, and double-check to see that the format is correct for the skipped question and the question immediately preceding the skipped question. Save your changes, then import the file again.
Enclosed on the disk is a sample text file for you to practice importing. This file is already formatted properly and saved as Text Only. You can open it with TeachText or a word processing program to view the contents. To import the file into a MakeTest document, start MakeTest 2.0, open a question file (or make a new one) and choose Import File from the File menu. In the sample file, the essay questions contained more than one paragraph. When a paragraph symbol appeared within a question, it was replaced with “^”. Once you have imported the sample file into MakeTest, you can click to the left of the text in the first question and choose Find Text from the Edit menu to find the first occurrence of ^. The ^ will be highlighted, so to replace it with a line break, simply press the return key. To find the next occurrence of ^, choose Find Again from the Edit menu or type Command-option-f. Using Command-option-f is faster than choosing Find Again from the Edit menu.
