CLUB 100 Library - 415/939-1246 BBS, 937-5039 NEWSLETTER, 932-8856 VOICE "Scholar Reviews" and STUDY Copyright 1987 by David Dunn Thomas All rights reserved - Distributed under the "Shareware" concept. Revised 6-03-87 to permit True/False questions. S C H O L A R D O C U M E N T A T I O N STUDY is a program that enables students to review information or study it for the first time as the program utilizes lessons on file, either RAM, Tandy portable disk drive, or Chipmunk drive to provide questions, additional information, and the correct answers. The program is only 3,365 bytes in Basic format; the lessons may have up to 100 questions depending on the amount of review data provided. Dozens of lessons could be prepared and stored on one disk, or in one folder of a Chipmunk disk, to access for one STUDY session. The important feature of Scholar Reviews is the built-in review capability of the program. Whenever the student selects an incorrect answer, information is promptly provided that includes the correct answer to the question though not necessarily in the same, exact words. Further, when the question is correctly answered, learning is enhanced by having the answer repeated. The answer may be repeated in the same phraseology or differently from that of the question. All of these variations are created via the correct formatting of the Scholar Review lesson file. The "Scholar Reviews" program, STUDY.BA, is simplicity itself for the student to operate for purposes of either learning or reviewing a lesson. The more difficult and painstaking operation is the preparation of the lesson files for the Scholar to make proper us of STUDY. This file explains use of the program as well as preparation of the lesson files. Using STUDY.BA: When STUDY is initialized, the student is asked for the lesson they wish to review and then whether the lesson file is in RAM or on disk. If the file does not exist, the user is dropped out of the program with an appropriate advisory message. If the file does exist, but is not in proper Scholar Review format, the student will be dropped out of the program either immediately or later in the review if there is incorrect formatting in the question/answer phase of the program. Once embarked, the student will have a series of multiple choice questions - each provides four choices. The reviewer is never told that he is wrong; rather, if he makes an error he is provided with the correct information and then asked the same question again. When the question is answered properly, the answer is returned to the student - optionally in a different format. Example: President of U.S. during World War I: 1) Woodrow Wilson 2) Jack Pershing 3) John Rockefeller 4) Benjamin Franklin ? If an incorrect response is chosen, then the screen displays: Pershing, Franklin, and Rockefeller were never President of the U.S., but Wilson served from 1913-1921. With the correct response, the display is: Correct! Woodrow Wilson was President in W. W. I, 1914-1918 Note that lesson formatting provides for INSTRUCTING the student instead of merely drilling. That is one of the principal strengths of the "Scholar Review" concept, if well executed! For some idea of the capabilities of Scholar Reviews, run STUDY with the LESSON.DO file from this Library loaded into either RAM or disk. There are only thirteen questions in the file, but sufficient to show the flexibility of the Scholar Review concept. The program STUDY does NOT have to be modified in any way as long as the lesson files are formatted as STUDY expects them. Lesson file preparation: First line of the file MUST contain three items separated by commas: | - Essential Scholar identifier n - The number of questions in the lesson xxx - The title of the lesson - no more than 38 characters Example: |,75,Olympic Games Indicates there are 75 questions in a lesson on the Olympics. Thereafter, EACH record must contain either six or ten items (depending upon type of question) separated by commas; these may be enclosed in quotes if textual material, but the quotes are MANDATORY for the last item - otherwise needed only if the text contains numeric information. Format for Multiple Choice questions: 1) n - The number of the ANSWER to the question (1 to 4) 2) | - Essential Scholar identifier 3) xxx - The question, no more than 38 characters 4) xxx - Possible answer, no more than 35 characters 5) - same 6) - same 7) - same 8) n - Response type identifier; 0 if no change in answer 1 if the answer is rephrased 9) xxx - Alternate answer phraseolgy if item 8 is 1 a single letter if item 8 is 0 10) xxx - Text of the information to be displayed when an incorrect answer has been chosen; may be up to 160 characters including spaces Examples: 3,|,Which listed is a continent?,United States of America,Washington D.C.,Africa,Great Britain,1,is one of the continents.," The seven continents of the world are North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, and Antarctica." In the above, the "1" following "Britain" indicates that the answer will be returned with different phraseology than the question. 2,|,John Adams was the nation's first,Treasurer,Vice President,President,Chief Justice,0,a," Later President, and father of another President, John Adams was also the first Vice President of the new nation." Here the question is used for the answer phrase, so "0,a" follows the word "Justice." Format for True/False questions: 1) n - The number of the ANSWER to the question: 1 = False, 2 = True 2) ~ - Essential Scholar identifier 3) xxx - The statement, no more than 38 characters 4) n - Response type identifier; 0 if no change in answer 1 if the answer is rephrased 5) xxx - Alternate answer phraseolgy if item 4 is 1 a single letter if item 4 is 0 6) xxx - Text of the information to be displayed when an incorrect answer has been chosen; may be up to 160 characters including spaces Composing records: Assuming that one has a ready source of questions and answers, perhaps the trickiest portion of lesson preparation is composing the last item, supplementary information. Note that the information in the above examples is enclosed in quotation marks; this is to preserve the leading space for a good format, but also because it is ESSENTIAL for proper operation of the program. The other spaces in the data are needed to get the well formatted display seen when the program is run. Tip: Prepare the entire record by starting in BASIC! Decide on the correct answer and type it, the comma, the proper identifier (| or ~), the comma, and the question. Then use the EDIT command to compose remainder of questions, answer(s), and review information. This procedure enables typing of precisely the format desired with no concern about spacing as can happen in TEXT mode. Finally, "Cut" or "Copy" the record into the paste buffer and exit the EDIT mode; proceed to TEXT work file for the lesson and "Paste" the record in place. ======= 6-03-87 ======= The STUDY program, sample LESSON.DO, and this file are distributed under the "Shareware" concept and are not in the Public Domain. Any person that makes use of the program commits themself to making a suitable contribution depending upon the number of persons assisted. Any lessons developed and distributed must have the Copyright notice found at the conclusion of LESSON.DO in this Library. Comments, questions and contributions may be directed to the author: Dave Thomas 2308 Chetwood Circle, #103 Timonium, MD 21093 Phone: (301) 252-5379 Electronic mail: GEnie: MORTIMER Delphi: MORTIMER CompuServe: 70526,1117