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Chemistry Formula Questions for Advanced Assessments
Chemistry Formula Questions for Advanced Assessments

Allows students to input full or partial chemical formulas into empty response boxes.

Monica Burke avatar
Written by Monica Burke
Updated over 7 months ago

PLEASE READ FIRST: You might want to use CLOZE CHEMISTRY instead of this question type. This question type is best for:

  • When you want students to type in an entire chemistry formula.

  • When there will be more than one response box that need to work in conjunction with each other.

  • When there are multiple versions and formats for correct answers.

Examples:

Does the question you are authoring involve the above component?

  • If so, then keep reading!

  • If not, we highly recommend using Cloze Chemistry instead, as it is generally easier to create and score. When in doubt, use Cloze Chemistry!


Chemistry Formula

We recommend reading through this entire article before beginning to build your question, as you'll want to make sure this question type is suited for your intentions. This question type allows students to easily enter chemical formulas, with advanced scoring methods and settings.

Example:


In this example, any version/order for the correct answer is accepted.


Build the Question

If you are creating a new item, select the + Create button on the assessment builder, title the item, then select the Add New plus sign to add a question.

  • If you are adding to an existing item, simply select the Add New plus sign (as shown above) to add a question to the item.

Next, select the Chemistry category from the options on the left, then select Chemistry formula.

Compose the Question

  • Compose question: Type question prompt into this field.

  • You have many formatting options from the Rich Text toolbar, including changing the font size, adding tables, using math symbols, adding multimedia, and more! Click here for more information on the different functions of the Rich Text toolbar.

Add Answer Content

  • In the Template field, you will type the content involved with the answer of the question:

  • This question type allows for only one line of answer entry.

  • You will use chemistry symbols to build the answer. If students need to fill in blanks that are within sentences or multiple lines of text, use the Cloze Chemistry question type instead.

  • To add a response box, select the r button in the upper-right corner of the chemistry keypad.


Set Correct Answers and Scoring

Step 1: Determine how many points the question will be worth.

Step 2: Type any version of the correct answer in the Value section.

IMPORTANT NOTE: anything that has been entered in the Template field (below the Compose Question field) MUST be entered in the Value field. If the Template field and the Value field do not match, the question will not be scored correctly.

Step 3: Choose a scoring method.

  • equivLiteral is most commonly used for this question type. See below for more details.

equivLiteral will only accept the correct answer as written exactly in the Value field. However, if you enable the Ignore order option, the students could type the answer in any order.

Using equivValue will accept the correct answer in any order (without needing to enable a separate setting like in equivLiteral).

Note - equivSymbolic is not a scoring method used in Chemistry Formula.


Student Preview

It's highly recommended to Preview the question as you are building it in the item. This displays the question as the students will see it and also verifies that the answers and scoring work as expected.

  • Step 1: Select the Preview button to go into Preview mode.

  • Step 2: Answer the question with the correct answers, including alternates.

    • Selecting Show Answers will present the correct answers.

  • Step 3: Verify that the auto-score correctly calculates the point value.

Click to see a video of this question type from the student's perspective.


More Options

Expand the More Options section to see other scoring and layout settings.

Scoring

Click to see additional scoring options, such as penalty points.

  • Unscored/Practice usage: removes all scoring from the item.

  • Check answer button & Check answer attempts: find more information here!

  • Penalty points: use this option if you want students to lose points for giving incorrect answers. Find more information here!

  • Minimum score if attempted: student will receive points as long as the question has been attempted (if the question is left blank or is unanswered, the student will not earn those points).

💡 Tip from the Otus Team: This question type can only be scored with Exact Match. If you are looking for the scoring options such as Partial Match per Response or Partial Match, those can be used with the Cloze Chemistry question type.

Layout

Click to see layout options, such as font sizes and response box size.

Here are the most commonly used layout options:

  • Change the font size: In the Font size dropdown menu, you can change the font size of all components of the question to small, normal, large, extra large, or huge.

  • Change the size of the response box(es): In the Width (px) and Height (px) fields, you can adjust the size of the response box. The default size is about 20px, so you can use that as your guide.

➡️ Do you have multiple response boxes you want to make different sizes? select the + Add button under Response Containers (individual); that will give you the option to change make each response box a different size.

Keypad Options:

  • The defaults for a chemistry question will always be Chemistry and Keyboard.

There are several different keypads to choose from, as well as placements of the keypad. For more information, check out this article.


Learnosity Resources

Click to see a video tutorial from Learnosity.

You can also read about this question type on Learnosity's Author Guide.


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