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The exercise type Open Free is a combination of the types Open, Dropdown and Text. One or more answer fields of any of these three types can be placed anywhere in the question text. An example is the following:
Answer fields and order of evaluation
The answer fields should be defined in the input area. For example, the input area from the example above looks as follows:
Below, the three types of answer fields are discussed in more detail.
The number of answer fields in the input area should be equal to the number of answer fields defined in the “General” tab of the exercise. For example, the exercise from the picture has four answer fields: one dropdown, two open, and one text. If the number of answer fields in the input area is not equal to the number defined in the “General” tab, an error message will pop up:
Important note: In the (positive and negative) feedback and solutions you can reference the answer fields in the order that they appear from left to right, per type, where you start with the open input, then the dropdowns and then the text areas. So, if you have the input area from above, then the answer fields are:
the first open input (correct answer: 9)
the second open input (correct answer: 11)
the dropdown (correct answer: 2)
the text (correct answer: ten)
Answer fields of the type Open
For an open answer field, type #input# in the input area. Open answer fields are allowed to remain empty, and in this case the student’s answer will be converted to %null. Feedback and solutions are defined in the same way as in the Open exercise type.
Answer fields of the type Dropdown
For a dropdown answer field, type #dropdown( option_1 , option_2 , … , option_n)# in the input area. Dropdown fields are not allowed to remain empty.
Feedback and solutions are defined in the same way as in the Dropdown exercise type. Thus, if option_2 is the correct answer in, then the solution should be defined as:
If we want to use LaTeX in an item, we can prevent errors by making sure that the delimiters # are preceded and followed by a space. In other words, we need #dropdown( # option_1 # ; # option_2 # ; # option_3 # )# instead of #dropdown(#option_1#;#option_2#; #option_3#)#. If you want to use text with commas, make sure to put double quotes around them, like #dropdown("1,5", 3 , 9)#.
Answer fields of type Text
For a text answer field, type #textarea# in the input area. Text fields are not allowed to remain empty. Feedback and solutions are defined in the same way as in the Text exercise type.
Placeholders
Placeholders can be added by clicking “+Add” -> “...Placeholder” in the Texts tab of the exercise, similar to the Open exercise type. Placeholders of open input fields should be in LaTeX, so they should include delimiters #...#.
Example: