How do I create a numeric response question?

A numeric response question is similar to a fill in the blank question; numeric response presents students with a sentence, paragraph, or formula that includes text boxes where they will enter numbers to fill in the blanks.  You can specify a number or range of numbers as the correct answer for each blank.  You may also use scientific notation or a complex number in an answer.

Note: Numeric response questions require answers to be correctly formatted as numbers.  To include text or punctuation in an answer or allow multiple correct answers for a question, use a fill in the blank question instead.


The steps in this article assume that you have already gone to the Tests & Quizzes tool and selected an assessment, but if you need more help completing these steps, open the links below.

Go to Tests & Quizzes.

Select the Tests & Quizzes tool from the Tool Menu of your site.

Select an assessment.

Questions may be added to a new or existing assessment, or added directly to a question pool as described in How do I add a question to a question pool?

Create a new assessment.

Create from Scratch with assessment builder selected

For steps to create a new assessment, see How do I create an assessment?

Or edit an existing assessment.

Select Edit from the Action drop-down menu for the assessment.

Note:

  • Assessment editing must take place in the Working Copies tab or in the Published Copies tab before anyone accesses the assessment to take it.
  • Changes made to assessments in Working Copies do not affect assessments in Published Copies, and vice versa.

Select Numeric Response from the Add Question menu.

Use the Add Question drop-down menu to select a question type, and choose Numeric Response.

Set the point value for the question.

Enter an Answer Point Value into the text box.

Tip: An assessment's total point value is the sum of all its questions' point values (e.g., an assessment with 10 questions worth 10 points each will be worth 100 total points).

Note: The total point value of a numeric response question is divided by the number of blanks in the question text. For example, a 10-point question with two blanks will award a student 5 points for each correct answer.

Display point value while students are taking the exam.

To Display Point Value while student is taking the exam, leave the default value of Yes.  To hide the point value, select No.

Note: To hide the point values for ALL questions in your assessment, it is recommended to select this option in the assessment Settings rather than for individual questions.

Add a minimum point value. (Optional)

Enter a Minimum Point Value to automatically award students the minimum value for answering the question, regardless of their answer.  Students who leave the answer blank will not receive the minimum point value.

Enter the question text.

  1. Note the instructions for Defining Answers and Acceptable Characters for numeric response questions.  Where blanks should appear in the text, enter the possible answer(s) in between curly brackets { }, for example: {1}.

    To accept any number within a range of numbers as correct, use a pipe | in between the lesser and greater values, for example: {1|5}.

    S
    cientific notation can be used with a period as the decimal point marker and the letter "E" or "e" for exponent, for example: {6.022E23} for Avogadro's number.

    Finally, you can include complex numbers in the form of {a+bi} where "a" and "b" are defined numeric values, for example: {1+1i}.

    Only numbers, decimal point markers (period OR comma), sign indicators preceding a number (e.g., -5), or spaces (e.g., as thousand separators, 5 000) are allowed as correct answers. For scientific notation, a period MUST be used as the decimal point marker.
  2. Enter the Question Text into the Rich-Text Editor.

Add attachment(s). (Optional)

To provide additional resources related to the question or to include question text in an attached document, select Add Attachments to browse for and upload a file.

Assign to a part. (Optional)

If the assessment has more than one part, you may use the Assign to Part drop-down menu to choose the Part where the question will be added.

Assign to a question pool. (Optional)

To add the question to a question pool, Select a pool name from the Assign to Question Pool drop-down menu.

Adding a question to a pool places a copy of the question in the pool and leaves a copy of the question in the current assessment.  For more information on question pools, see What is a question pool?

Provide answer feedback. (Optional)

You may add Correct or Incorrect Answer Feedback which you can make available to students.

Note: If you include feedback here, you will also need to make it available to students in the Feedback Settings for students to access it.

Select Save.