Should I use the Calculated or Calculated simple question type?
The Calculated simple question is a version of the Calculated question without the option to use shared datasets.*
You may find it easier to set up.**
Following are some hints for setting up both types of question:
- If the answer is necessarily a whole number, then you can completely ignore the Tolerance and Answer display fields
- In the Calculated question:
- On the second editing page, the values of the Wild card field are effectively 'Private' and 'Shared'. Ignore the actual wording.
- On the third page, in section Item to add, set the Minimum, Maximum and Decimal places fields. Then click on Get new 'Item to add' now .Then go section Add in order to add new datasets and display them.
- In the Calculated simple question:
- After entering the question and answer/s, click on button Find the wild cards {x..} present in the correct answer formula
- Open section Wild cards parameters used to generate the values and set the Minimum, Maximum and Decimal places fields. Then use the Generate buttons to generate some datasets.
- Open section Wild card(s) values. To see more values, use the Display buttons
*A dataset is a set of groups of numbers e.g a set of (width,breadth) pairs. Each question, or set of questions, in a quiz attempt (depending on whether the data is synchronized between the questions), is assigned a random set from the dataset. In other words, a shared dataset has two distinct uses: It saves creating a new dataset for each question and, when necessary, it ensures that different questions within one quiz attempt use the the same numbers
** Somewhat annoyingly, it does not have an option to delete datasets