Automatic Generation and Delivery of Multiple-Choice Math Quizzes

Abstract

We present an application of constraint logic programming to create multiple-choice questions for math quizzes. Constraints are used for the configuration of the generator, giving the user some flexibility to customize the forms of the expressions arising in the exercises. Constraints are also used to control the application of the buggy rules in the derivation of plausible wrong solutions to the quiz questions. We developed a prototype based on the core system of AGILMAT [18]. For delivering math quizzes to students, we used an automatic evaluation feature of Mooshak [8] that was improved to handle math expressions. The communication between the two systems-AgilmatQuiz and Mooshak-relies on a specially designed L A T E X based quiz format. This tool is being used at our institution to create quizzes to support assessment in a PreCalculus course for first year undergraduate students. Research funded in part by the ERDF/COMPETE Programme and by the Portuguese Government through the FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under the projects PEst-C/MAT/UI0144/2011 and FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022701.

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