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We have a collection of online
quizzes for students, which are also available as printable
handouts for teachers.
Making the quizzes available in two formats imposes a certain discipline
on the quizzes, as both have to be taken into consideration. The online
versions can be of any length, but the handouts have pages, which generally
take about ten questions, so the minimum length of a test has to be about
that. However, handouts might be used in different years, so the quizzes
are never in fact finished and can be improved. We try to make sure that
new quizzes appear every week, but also try to add questions to older
ones as and when we think of them. This way, the quizzes are slowly growing
both in breadth and depth. Unlike paper exercises, they have no fixed
length and can continue to grow over time, which means that they have
the potential to end up covering a topic in greater depth,which can supplemented
with entries in the articles
section.
We also have a test section in the
members' area. Here, there are a number of differences. Firstly,
and most importantly, results are saved, so that students can look back
at what they have done. The tests present a random selection of ten questions
from the list in the database. Given that all of the tests have more than
ten questions, some considerably more, this means that the tests can be
retaken without being exactly the same.
Change is a principle running through both sections. We have tried to
make quizzes and tests that would last over time and be worth doing more
than once. The poll
section contains a list of questions about English usage,
which can either be viewed randomly, or searched through a directory of
the database. Again, the random element in this section adds variation
and ensures that different experiences are available from these sections.
In these ways, we have tried to reduce the 'factoid' nature of the sections,
and make them ebb and flow over time.
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