Embedded Answers

Cloze Question Type

Source Moodle.org, Moodle Docs: Embedded Answers (Cloze) Question Type,
https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Embedded_Answers_(Cloze)_question_type retrieved on September 13, 2021.

About Page
Teacher skill on setting up questions using Moodle is refined with drafting Embedded Answers (Cloze
question type). Teacher must bear in mind that student reflects better with fill-in-the answer question
types. However, the teachers must be cautious on “Embedding Practices” (with or without intent), for it
is the way of streaming media stealthily that would affect targeted technology users, specifically
students and teachers alike. Practice of Examination using Moodle needs technology review before
conducting such activities, not just ensuring Moodle Database and PDF elements.

Embedded answers (Cloze) questions consist of a passage of text (in Moodle format) that has various
answers embedded within it, including multiple choice, short answers and numerical answers.

Cloze Question Editors

1) Online Cloze Editor
You can link to an external website that does create these questions from a graphical interface:
e.g. Online Cloze Question quiz generator |http://projects.ael.uni-
tuebingen.de/quiz/htmlarea/index.php

2) Excel-based Close Editor

There is an Excel-based Cloze and GIFT Generator that was presented at the 2017 Moodle Moot
Japan.

3) Cloze editor for TinyMCE

Cloze editor for TinyMCE that will let you create these questions from a graphical interface
within your Moodle site, but it will overwrite your current HTML editor and only works with the
TinyMCE editor. In 2016 a Cloze editor for Atto additional plugin was created.
 4) Hot Potatoes
Hot Potatoes software is the easiest way to create Embedded answer (Cloze) questions. Once
you have created your questions on your PC, you can then import them into Moodle's quiz
module.

The flexibility of the Cloze question type is hard to equal and despite the minor coding that you need to
create the questions, it has great worth in the Moodle Quiz.

Setting-up Questions
1. Select the question category
2. Give the question a descriptive name - this allows you to identify it in the question
bank.
3. Enter the passage of text (in Moodle format - see Format below) into the 'question text'
field.
4. Select an image to display if you want to add a picture to the question. For the student,
it appears immediately above the question text.
5. Set the 'default question grade' (i.e. the maximum number of marks for this question).
6. Set the 'Penalty factor' (see Penalty factor below).
7. If you wish, add general feedback. This is text that appears to the student after he/she
has answered the question.
8. The editor has been modified and allows you to test if your syntax is good. The different
questions elements decoded will be displayed and syntax errors pinpoint. However, it
cannot check if the question decoded is two questions in one because of an error syntax
(for example ~}, =~, etc.).
9. Click Save changes to add the question to the category.

Question Format
Questions consist of a passage of text (in Moodle format) that has various sub-questions
embedded within it, including

 short answers (SHORTANSWER or SA or MW), case is unimportant,

 short answers (SHORTANSWER_C or SAC or MWC), case must match,
  numerical answers (NUMERICAL or NM),
 multiple choice (MULTICHOICE or MC), represented as a dropdown menu in-line in the
text,
 multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_V or MCV), represented as a vertical column of radio
buttons, or
 multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_H or MCH), represented as a horizontal row of radio-
buttons,
 multiple choice (MULTIRESPONSE or MR), represented as a vertical row of checkboxes
 multiple choice (MULTIRESPONSE_H or MRH), represented as a horizontal row of
checkboxes

The structure of each cloze sub-question is identical:

{ start the cloze sub-question with a bracket (AltGr+7)
1 define a grade for each cloze by a number (optional). This used for calculation of
question grading. Note that this number can only be a positive integer (1, 2, 3, etc.)
:SHORTANSWER: define the type of cloze sub-question. Definition is bounded by ':'.
~ is a separator between answer options
= marks a correct answer
# marks the beginning of an (optional) feedback message
} close the cloze sub-question at the end with a bracket (AltGr+0)

Now a very simple example:

{1:SHORTANSWER:=Berlin} is the capital of Germany.

NB: Be careful when copying a cloze type question into the WYSIWYG HTML editor, as line breaks tend
to get added, which destroys the question.

NOTE
 The individual embedded answers are represented by the code in braces {}.
 The number at the start is the 'weight', so in this case each answer contributes an equal
share of the overall grade.
 The correct option in each case is preceded either by an = sign or by %100%.
  The text appearing after the # that follows each option is the feedback that the student
will see if they choose that option.
 If the student enters 'Marseille' in the final example, they score 50% of the total grade.
 The asterisk * preceding the "Wrong answer" feedback in the final example means that
the student will see this feedback if they enter anything other than "Paris" or
"Marseille".
 For multiple choice vertical or horizontal rendering there is no automatic numbering,
though can added at each answer.

Syntax Explanations
1. All question items within a cloze-type question are coded inside curled braces { }.

2. The number which appears between the opening brace and the colon {1: is the
weighting of that item; if it is set at 1 for all the items, it needs not be specified, so you
can have {:.

3. After the colon we have the item question type: MULTICHOICE, SHORTANSWER,
NUMERICAL.

4. The syntax for MULTICHOICE and SHORTANSWER is the same; the only difference is in
the displaying of the item to the student.

5. The order of the various answers is indifferent (except if you want a catch-all for wrong
answers, see #12 below).

6. A correct answer is preceded with the equal sign = or a percentage (usually %100%).

7. A wrong answer is preceded with nothing or a percentage (usually %0%) but you can
even use negative points by preceding with ~%-25% [not before Moodle 2.0]). Note that
negative points are taken into account in all question behaviours except "Interactive
with multiple tries".

8. You can allocate some points between 0 and 100 to some answers, if you put the
appropriate percentage.

9. All answers except the first one are separated from one another by the tilde ~ sign.

10. Answers can be followed by an optional feedback message, preceded with the # sign; if
there is no feedback message, the # sign can be present or absent, it does not matter.

11. Note that the feedback message and the correct answer are displayed in a small popup
window (if and when the correct and or feedback have been declared accessible to the
 students in the Quiz settings) upon mouse hovering. The popup window has a title
"feedback" and you can use HTML tags to format your feedback. In some browsers (For
example IE5.5) the form fields can cover part of the feedback windows. It can help to
not have the formfields for the answers too close to each other.

12. In the SHORTANSWER type you may want to put a catch-all (wrong) answer in order to
send a "wrong, try again" feedback; you can do this by inserting an asterisk * as the very
last expected answer in your formula.

13. You should not have sequences such as %#, %~, %}, =#, =%, =}, ~#, ~% and ~} in the
answer because you should not have empty answers or empty answer options. These
two character sequences constitute error syntaxes, where the second character is
interpreted as if it were escaped, and gives unexpected results: the answer is decoded
as one instead of two or more.

Feedback
Note that in MULTICHOICE and MULTICHOICE_V the feedback is displayed upon hovering, that is, rolling
the cursor over the answer box. In MULTICHOICE_H the feedback is displayed directly on the screen
next to the student's answer.

Question text
Which animal eats mice? (answer: the cat)
Testing MULTICHOICE {1:MULTICHOICE:=the cat#Yes, that's right~the dog#Nope!}
Testing MULTICHOICE_H {1:MULTICHOICE_H:=the cat#Yes, that's right~the dog#Nope!}
Testing MULTICHOICE_V{1:MULTICHOICE:=the cat#Yes, that's right~the dog#Nope!}

Images in Multi-choice Questions

You can place images in choices of multiple choice sub-questions with radio buttons or
checkboxes, i.e.:

 MULTICHOICE_V or MCV
 MULTICHOICE_H or MCH

 MULTIRESPONSE or MR

 MULTIRESPONSE_H or MRH

and their shuffled version:

 MULTICHOICE_VS or MCVS
 MULTICHOICE_HS or MCHS
  MULTIRESPONSE_S or MRS

 MULTIRESPONSE_HS or MRHS

However, you cannot place images in choices of multiple choice sub-questions with a dropdown
menu (MULTICHOICE or MC, and MULTICHOICE_S or MCS).

It is important that the source of the images is a fixed URL. place images in the choices, edit the
HTML code of the question and insert manually <img> tags with the URL from the images in
the Folder.

In the example below, the HTML code of the question text contains the following:

Note: For better readability, the following text has been

divided into small paragraphs. However, in reality, for the
question to work, the text should only be one paragraph.
The first Moodle Research conference was held in

{1:MCV:&nbsp; <img
src="https://moodleformulas.org/pluginfile.php/11393/mod_folder/content/0/P
ublic%20domain%20-%20Tunisia%20-%20200x114.jpg">&nbsp; Sousse, Tunisia
&nbsp;
#That was the second

~&nbsp; <img
src="https://moodleformulas.org/pluginfile.php/11393/mod_folder/content/0/P
ublic%20domain%20-%20California%20-%20200x114.jpg">&nbsp; California, USA
&nbsp;
#That was the third

~=&nbsp; <img
src="https://moodleformulas.org/pluginfile.php/11393/mod_folder/content/0/P
ublic%20domain%20-%20Crete%20-%20200x114.jpg">&nbsp; Crete, Greece &nbsp;
#Correct!

~%50%&nbsp; <img
src="https://moodleformulas.org/pluginfile.php/11393/mod_folder/content/0/P
ublic%20domain%20-%20Greece%20-%20200x114.jpg">&nbsp; Greece &nbsp;
#Yes but not close enough so you only get half the credit.}

Equations in Multi-choice
The MULTICHOICE (MC) sub-question, as well as the MULTICHOICE_S (MCS) sub-question, of
the Cloze question type rely on the <option> tag for input. There is no way to pass code with
this tag because its permitted content is only "text, possibly with escaped characters". In other
words, you cannot have equations with the MC or MCS questions.

However, you can have equations in the MULTICHOICE_V (MVC) and MULTICHOICE_H (MCH)
sub-questions, as well as in the MULTICHOICE_VS (MCVS) and MULTICHOICE_HS (MCHS) sub-
questions. You can use LaTeX, MathML or ASCIIMath.
You can also have equations in the feedback of MCV, MCH, MCVS and MCHS questions.

If you are using LaTeX, you must replace { with its HTML entity reference &#123; and } with
&#125; . Also, most of the time, you will want to use \( and \) as delimiters for display within
text, not on its own line with \[ and \] and not the older delimiters $$ and $$ .

Dropdown choice
In the MULTICHOICE (MC) and MULTICHOICE_S (MCS) sub-questions, it is possible to add
information to each choice, in the form of a mouse-over tooltip, using a small JavaScript code.

Numerical Cloze
From the student perspective, a numerical Cloze question looks just like a short-answer
question or fill in the blanks.

The difference is that numerical answers are allowed to have an accepted error. This allows a
continuous range of answers to be set. You can also express your answer in some different
numerical formats. 23.4 23,4 (some countries use , as a decimal separator) and 2.34E+1
(meaning 2.34*10^1) would be interpreted as the same.

Syntax for Numerical Cloze Questions

The format of a NUMERICAL Cloze question is similar to that of the other Cloze types and they
can be mixed in the same question. As with other Cloze tests, you write your question or
incomplete text, and add the Cloze code at the point where the student is supposed to enter
their numerical answer.

An example of the syntax used is shown below:

{2:NUMERICAL:=23.8:0.1#Feedback for correct answer 23.8
~%50%23.8:2#Feedback for ½credit near correct answer}.

In this example:
 2: is the question point weight, which means that this question has twice the weight in
the final point(s) for this question as other partial answers with weight 1 (or no declared
weight - you can start with {: for the default weight 1) in the same question.
 NUMERICAL: says what kind of question it is. It must be in CAPS.
  =23.8:0.1 = or %100% means correct if the answer is 23.8 with an accepted error of 0.1,
then any number between 23.7 and 23.9 will be accepted as correct. (In the GIFT
numerical question one can express an interval like this 13..15 or 14:1 but in Cloze only
14:1 works.)
 #Feedback for correct answer 23.8 is preceded by #
 ~%50%23.8:2 ~ is the separator for answer alternatives %50% means this answer would
get 50% of the score that the more precise answer had gotten. Because the tolerance
here is 2, 21.8 to 25.8 would get this point and feedback.

All or nothing
There are two ways to get the "all or nothing" behavior for the Cloze question: using negative
points and using "all or nothing" plugins:

Use negative points to cancel positive points. For example:

This is a question with two sub-questions: {1:SHORTANSWER:=correct answer~%-100%*} and
{1:SHORTANSWER:=correct answer~%-100%*}.

This is a question with three sub-questions: {1:SHORTANSWER:=correct answer~%-200%*},

{1:SHORTANSWER:=correct answer~%-200%*} and {1:SHORTANSWER:=correct answer~%-200%*}.
etc.

You can use this method with all question behaviours, except "Interactive with multiple tries"
which does not treat negative points.

APPENDIX

Penalty Factor
The 'penalty factor' only applies when the question is used in a quiz using adaptive mode - i.e. where the
student is allowed multiple attempts at a question even within the same attempt at the quiz. If the
penalty factor is more than 0, then the student will lose that proportion of the maximum grade upon
each successive attempt.

For example, if the default question grade is 10, and the penalty factor is 0.2, then each successive
attempt after the first one will incur a penalty of 0.2 x 10 = 2 points. The grading for the cloze question
applies the penalty to each subpart of the question as a whole. For example, if you have three fill in the
blanks each worth 1 point each, then the penalty will only be incurred on the incorrect parts, not the
questions as a whole.
Overrides
If the correct answer contains } # ~ / " or \ you will have to escape them by putting a \ in front
of each such character. But [this is tricky]. The { shouldn't be escaped, this can be vital in getting
TeX expressions to work. In the feedback ~ and } must be escaped otherwise it will be
interpreted as the next answer or end of the short answer section respectively. Quotation signs:
" can lead to trouble anyhow in both places.

Use the HTML entity: & quot; (without the space between & and quot;). If you want to have
Mathematical symbols there can be problems with the \ used in TeX expressions. One
alternative can be to use unicode characters.