Sections create a unique structure for an assessment. The assessment is graded as one exam and appears in reports as one exam; however, the exam-taking experience is split up into smaller units. Compare it to an exam with multiple exam booklets, where exam-takers complete Exam Booklet A and submit it, and then continue to Exam Booklet B.
This feature is in limited release at this time. If you'd like to implement this feature in your ExamSoft Portal, check with your Customer Success Manager for details.
Structure
- The sections are always presented in the order that is specified in the assessment settings.
- An exam-taker must submit a section before they can start the next section.
- After completing a section, an exam-taker cannot go back to it.
- Exam-makers can set a time limit for each section.
- Exam-takers can submit a section early.
- Exam-takers cannot exceed the specified time limit for a section.
- When the time is up, either the next section appears, or the Submit Exam option appears.
Use Cases
Here are a few ways that you might use sections:
- For a final exam, each section could represent a unit of the course.
- For a certification-prep exam, each section could cover a different category of content or a different type of question.
- You can use sections to fine-tune question randomization. Although question randomization always applies to the exam as a whole, you can create different effects by using sections.
- Let's say that you want all of your questions to be randomized, but you want the essay questions to appear at the end of the exam. You could set up two sections. The first section would hold your non-essay questions (Multiple Choice, Hot Spot, and so on) and the second would hold your essay questions. When you select question randomization in the post settings, the questions will be randomized within both sections, but the essay questions will always appear at the end of the exam.
- As another scenario, let's say that you want the first section to present the questions in a fixed order, but you want the second section to present the questions randomly. You would group the questions in the first section; with grouping, the questions always appear together in the order in which they are listed on the Build Assessment page. In the second section, you would not apply grouping. Finally, you would apply randomization in the Assessment Options Settings.
The Exam-Taker Experience in Examplify
For information about the exam-taker experience when an exam includes sections, see: Tips for Exam Sections(on the Exam-Taker Help Site)
How-To Instructions
For step-by-step instructions about exam sections, see: Add and Organize Exam Sections(a procedure within the "Create a Question Bank Assessment" article).