some questions that needs to be answered.

1. Text file structure:

Along with question, we need to identify  type of question it belongs to. This is essential to pick only the predetermined number of questions belonging to that category (How to identify for every question?)

What if the question or answer is more than one line?  How to identify the beginning and end of a multiline questions/answers? (Do we need terminators?)

Since we need to pick questions randomly  type of question wise, It could be essential to load all questions and answers into memory( will we run short of memory due to page swaps?) : Assuming we  have 60+ sets of questions and each question paper having  around 65 questions and answers having multiple lines what will be the  performance?(I do not have exposure to working with flat text files, but  had only to indexed files  and Databases which also have indexes  and hence fairly fast)

 Rather than uploading entire question paper, if some one wants to add just questions, what  interface should we provide for entry?

As discussed there has to be a facility for modification of questions/answers for wrong entry/ rephrasing of questions or answers.

Do we need to provide a delete option for  selected  questions?

Do we insist that question and answers should always be given/entered  simultaneously?

As we move along we may have more doubts/suggestions…

Re: Scanned pages

I. Do you think you want to enhance this to 9th grade and later to 8th Grade. I sense that by the time children are in 10th - they still lack basic elementary math skills like multiplying negative numbers with positive numbers ?
Cross Multiplication.
Finding Square roots , cube roots of.
The content will be in the same format - multiple choice/ one line answer / yes-no / true-false /match-the-following.
 

Teachers can download this and take printouts and give it to students. This is not Online test/ but rather something that I can take it to a rural school and give it to the teacher and show where the students need to sharpen their skills

II. Is it possible to enhance your web site and develop math-word problems, so that when we give it as a quiz -they can still figure it out. ( for rural students ) e.g:
- A water well is 20 feet in dia, and collects water from the base at 2 inches / day - how many days does it take to fill ?  ( here they are learning geometry )
1) 20 days   2) option2    3 ) option 3     4 ) option 4

- A coconut tree grows at 3 ft /year and max height is 100 ft, How many years does it take to reach this height
1)  10 years   2 ) 20 years 3 ) 30 years ...

- A farmer sells 100 eggs at 3 rupees /each in the local market, and he wants to increase his profits, by 10 %. what should he sell it at ?
1 )   option 1 , 2, 3   4

- A certain field has to be fenced, and it has an area of 1 acre X 1. 5 acres - and he has to place posts every 10 ft apart. Can he do it with 25 posts
1 ) Yes 2 ) No

- To calculate the A.P we use this formula, Tn = a + ( n -1 )d
1 ) True 2 ) False

- Shobha climbs Chamundi hills in 1 hr and there are a 1000 steps? how much steps does she take every minute .............. ( to be completed )

- Skin grows at 2 mm / day, and if the cut in the skin is 1 cm , how many days does it take to heal ?


III. There are several high, middle and lower high schools in my rural village and they can benefit from this a lot ? 


In the next months - I am visiting a new school further than Tumkur.

We can send out question papers thru regular post ( say 10 out of our 100 questions ) in advance and when we go there, present a new q paper ?

JAVA development plan

A sample file name will be math_module1.txt
The data structure will have the first entry as the filename itself:
( minus the .txt )
module_name | question_type | question | correct_ans | first option |
second option |third option | fourth option
The question is split into tags :
%KAN% anything follow this is treated as regional language.
%ENG% anything after this is treated as English .
e;g : %KAN% kannada text %ENG% what are the 2 poles of earth
called ?



The question_type in a file can be
1. one_line_answer

2. Multiple_choice

3. yes_or_no

4. true_or_false

5. match_the_following

6. and so on.

Depending on the question_type - the line contents can vary
e.g: if it is a multiple_choice - then there will be correct_ans|question, and 4 possible answers. i.e correct_ans|question|first ptin|second|option

If it is a yes_or_no, there will be |correct_ans|question|yes|no

if it is a true_or_false , there will be |true_or_false|question|true|false

math_module1 | multiple_choice | correct_answer| what is the diameter of the Circle | 2r | 3r|4r| 2 Pi r
math_module1 | one_line_answer | what is the circumference of a circle | 2
Pi r |
gk_module1 | match_following | Cow|Horse|Fowl|Pig || piglet|chicken|Calf|
foal|cub
gk_module |true_false |True|Indian Independence was in 1947 | True |False
gk_module |yes_no|yes|Ice melts under the Sun | Yes |No
gk_module | ???? |???

The different operations one can do are :

Read File/Module : will read the file and store it based on the key
'math_module1';
Delete Module : will ask for the module name and delete it e;g:
math_module1'
List Modules: will present the different modules loaded
math_module1
math_module2
science_module 1:
List /Edit questions from module :
Should ask for module names and present it:
User can edit the module name and click on Reload or Cancel.
On Reload - it will update the module contents.
---------------
Front End will render :
- 5 single line questions
- 3 match the following
- 2 option based answers.
and will present the buttons for multiple choice, and things like that.
Shashi

http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/index.html