Random Multiple Choice Answer in a Random Order

[jlhayesmo]

Hello,

I am a math teacher and many of the online tools that I use allow me to import questions and 4 multiple choice answers from excel. So my goal is to have excel create the right answer and then 3 random unique values (so multiple correct answers don't appear) and put those 4 values (1 correct/3 incorrect) in a random order. So for example sake, say column A has the correct answer, I would like B, C, D, to contain random values and then in E, F, G, H the 4 values are put in a random order.

Hope this makes sense,
JLH

 

[6StringJazzer]

The concept is clear but we have a way to go before there is enough detail to actually build something.

What kind of questions are these? "excel create the right answer" Do you actually want Excel to solve the problems? What kind of problems are these? I think you may have to provide the right answer in each case.

Depending on the type of problem, test design using random numbers for answers may not be the best choice, pedagogically. Just as an example suppose we have this problem:

5 * 3 + 1

The correct answer is 16. You could give random numbers as other answers, say 5, 17, 13. However, a common approach is to provide answers that reflect common student errors. For example, the answer 20 would be the answer if a student uses incorrect order of operations. With random numbers the students might be able to dope out the correct answer even if they don't really know how to solve the problem.

Offering a right answer and three wrong answers in random order should not be too hard, but I think the test design is the really hard part. Please tell us whatever you can about what you're doing.