Common Test Formatting Issues & Solutions

[RiverWalker88]

What are some common test formatting issues you've been seeing that we should all be aware of and what ways can you fix them? This can be for specific events, specific methods of test writing (e.g. LaTeX) or just in general some formatting issues that keep popping up.

We all love to complain, but please post a solution too, that way there's a way to take action for anyone reading this forum.

The purpose of this thread is not test content or how events are run. It is for sharing formatting issues that show up in tests/stations on a fairly regular basis and ways we found that could solve these.

[drcubbin]

LaTeX test writers:

I see this a lot, especially now with transferring scilympiad tests onto a LaTeX document (which is still extremely appreciated, regardless of its issues).

Screenshot 2022-03-08 194221.jpg (30.93 KiB) Viewed 5081 times

This is confusing because it makes the block of instructions look like part of the previous question. There are two ways I've found to make this look more like this (assuming you are using the exam document class):

Screenshot 2022-03-08 194527.jpg (28.95 KiB) Viewed 5081 times

First, you can end and rebegin the questions environment. This worked pretty well for me when I have to do section breaks (section headers and whatnot) because I really don't need to be in the questions environment. The code is as follows:

Code: Select all

...
\question This is a question.
\end{questions}

This is the instruction or inline text unrelated to the previous question.

\begin{questions}
\setcounter{question}{PREVIOUS QUESTION NUMBER}
\question This is the next question.
...

Or, you can fudge it with a minipage that is shifted 0.25 inches to the left (or maybe more or less, if you are using something instead of the exam class for whatever reason). The code is as follows:

Paste this into your document header:

Code: Select all

\newcommand{\sectiontext}[1]{
    \hspace{-.25in}\begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
        #1
    \end{minipage}
}

And any time you want to shift the text over out of the question, use:

Code: Select all

\sectiontext{This is the stuff I don't want in the question}

I realize this is a bunch more effort, and on large tournament scale, may not be plausible. Anyone who does it, I still really appreciate you putting things in LaTeX, it is still much nicer to look at than a scilympiad printout, even with its flaws. I wanted to post this in case anyone individually does theirs and was struggling with this issue

[knightmoves]

Why not put the "information needed for the next question" in the next question - then it's clear.

If you've got multiple questions referring to the same information, put the information in a \question, and then each question as a \part

[BrownieInMotion]

Not really issues, but there are some readability/accessibility best practices I think a lot of exams could use. A few come to mind immediately:

• If a question crosses between pages, add a page break (Ctrl+Enter) so it's all on the same page. And use page breaks instead of pressing Enter repeatedly.
• If you're using slides for a stations event, make any text you have on the slide big. If you want teams to read a lot of words, don't squeeze it into the slides, print it out and give it to them.

Generalizing the above discussion regarding background information pertaining to multiple questions, if you're really just asking multiple questions about the same thing, then just make them subparts of that question. I think there are a lot of cases where that's not the best option, however, such as for a sequence, or where it's not possible, like on Scilympiad.

In the latter case, having the information paragraph hanging relative to the questions is a good way to make the block hard to miss. I would also begin the instructions with a clause specifying the specific question numbers it applies to eliminates any ambiguity and makes the information much more salient. Here's a snippet from an exam I wrote this season:


In general, I like to use the same patterns throughout the exam as much as possible so students know what to expect. And I think the most important thing is to have a consistent style and stick to it throughout your exam. I have almost never seen an exam where the formatting of the text itself detracted from the exam significantly, but if anyone has any counterexamples I would be very interested in seeing them.

[knightmoves]

[*]If you're using slides for a stations event, make any text you have on the slide big. If you want teams to read a lot of words, don't squeeze it into the slides, print it out and give it to them.[/*]

This is an accessibility issue as well as just sensible. It's supposed to be a science test, not an eye test.

[drcubbin]

Why not put the "information needed for the next question" in the next question - then it's clear.

If you've got multiple questions referring to the same information, put the information in a \question, and then each question as a \part

Exactly. It is not the way we would normally write/format a test, but in the virtual Scilympiad age of testing, we need to re-think some issues that pop up.

[wandre]

First, you can end and rebegin the questions environment. This worked pretty well for me when I have to do section breaks (section headers and whatnot) because I really don't need to be in the questions environment. The code is as follows:

Code: Select all

...
\question This is a question.
\end{questions}

This is the instruction or inline text unrelated to the previous question.

\begin{questions}
\setcounter{question}{PREVIOUS QUESTION NUMBER}
\question This is the next question.
...

A potentially more elegant solution to this that I use is:

Code: Select all

...
\question This is a question.

\fullwidth{This is the instruction or inline text unrelated to the previous question.

\question This is the next question.