Syvum' authoring tool lets you create quizzes in multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, flash card and true false formats. All quizzes require a database of questions along with their answers, and optionally explanations and hints to assist in learning.

Following is an explanation of the terms that appear on the quiz creation template.

File Name

The filename is the name given to the file in the database. This may be alphanumeric, with "_". Spaces and "." are not allowed in the file name.

Title

The title of the quiz is what is shown as the heading on the quiz page, as well as in the title bar of the window.

Theory

You may enter the theory required to solve the quiz in this box. You may also choose to give a link to an external theory page on any web site.

Instructions for the quiz

Use this box to enter any specific instructions for the quiz takers. For instance, on a quiz asking for synonyms, you may say "What is the synonym of each word below?"

Number of Questions

A quiz may display a selected number of questions from the database at any given time. For instance, the database may have 10 questions, and the quiz creator may choose to display only 4 of them at one time. This can be achieved by setting the number of questions in the quiz to 4, and number of questions in the database to 10.

Once the quiz template has been created, or a quiz is opened for editing after it was saved in a previous session, you may increase the number of questions in the quiz database by selecting "Add 5 more" or "Add 10 more" questions form the drop down next to the "Number of Questions in the Database" entry.

SyvumClick^TM Lookups

SyvumClick^TM enables the lookup of any word or phrase on the quiz page to be looked up in the resource of your choice -- such as a dictionary, thesaurus, translator, or a search engine. By enabling this feature, you can allow the quiz taker to learn more about the words / phrases unfamiliar to them.

Score and Show Answers Button

A quiz is presented to the user with 2 options -- "Score" and "Score and Show Answers." You may choose to disable the "Score and Show Answers" button which will effectively turn the quiz into a test as the quiz takers will not be able to see the correct answers. This can be coupled with our student and class management system, so that when the quiz takers click on the Score button, their score will automatically get recorded by the class management system for you to view later on.

Additional Formats

In addition to displaying the quiz with the "number of questions in the quiz" specified above, you may choose to give the quiz takers access to additional formats such as One question at a time, Flash Cards and Thrillionnaire Game. This can be used to enhance learning.

Show Clues

Our system has the ability to automatically generate first-letter-clues for fill-in-the-blank questions, and half-n-half clues for multiple choice questions. The clues are only shown when requested by the quiz taker.

First-letter-clues basically show only the first letters of each word as a clue to help the quiz taker. For instance, if the quiz taker is expected to type the answer as George Washington, and a request for showing the first-letter-clue is made, they'll see "G _ _ _ _ _ W _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (6, 10 letters)" as the clue.

Half-n-half clue work for multiple choice questions where the correct answer is expected to be selected from 3 or more options. If a request for such a clue is made, the quiz taker will see something like "Choose your answer from option 1 and option 3" narrowing down the possibilities to 2 (thus, only half the chance to get it wrong or right).

Study Mode

When "study mode" is enabled, all the questions, answers and explanations in a quiz can be viewed on one page, presented either as a worksheet, a table or a list. To view samples of these, click worksheet sample, table sample, list sample.

Superscripts and Subscripts

When your quiz requires superscripts and subscripts, such as in chemical formulas, or mathematical equations, you can instruct the quiz scoring algorithm to expect the answers entered by the students to conform to the superscripts and subscripts.

To create super/subscripts, you may use our easy to use button panel next to the input fields. By clicking the buttons, you can convert selected text into a superscript or a subscript. Note that it is generally a good idea to ener the full text before converting the relevant portions to superscript or subscript. For instance, to write SO₄^2-, first enter SO42- in the intput field. Then select the 4, and click on the subscript button, followed by selecting "2-" and clicking on superscript button.

If your browser doesn't support the clickable entering of superscript and subscripts, you may follow the guidelines below:

Subscripts: _text will show "text" as a subscript. For example, "H₂SO₄" will show H2SO4 with 2 and 4 as subscripts -- like H₂SO₄.

Superscripts: ^text will show "text" as superscript. For example, "H^-" will show the "-" as superscript of H -- like H^-.

Superscripts and subscripts may be mixed. For instance, "SO₄^2-" will show 4 as subscript, and "2-" as superscript -- like SO₄^2-.

Importantly, to accept superscripts and subscripts in the answers typed by the students, you need to check the "Accept superscripts and subscripts" check box towards the top in the quiz template.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.