What are recommended settings for scanning answer sheets?

• Color: if possible please scan in color, as color scans retain valuable information for mark recognition.
• Resolution: 300 dpi.
• Save images as: PNG or JPG.

Does the program allow questions, for which two or more choices should be marked?

Yes, the program supports marking multiple answers per question.

Go to "Prepare Answer Sheet" tab, in "Test Info" section, under "List of all Questions, for which Two or More Filled Circles per Answer are Allowed", please provide a list of such questions.

The entry takes a list of questions, specifically, a list of question numbers or question ranges separated by commas.

For example,"1-10, 15, 30-40" -- means all questions from 1 to 10 inclusively, question number 15, and questions from 30 to 40 inclusively.

Could you explain what question correlation column means (this Q vs all others)?

ρ [GD v Oth] is a consistency measure. It is calculated for each question, and is akin to corrected Item-Total correlation. It is calculated as a Pearson correlation coefficient between two variables: all students' performance on the particular question vs. their total performance on all other questions.

This feature is primarily intended to provide a quick look at the question's consistency with the rest of the test, and it helps to easily identify potentially weak or defective questions. According to our users, the basic per question summary (e.g., which questions got the lowest % correct, what is breakdown of answers between a,b,c,d) and also the above mentioned item consistency measure are very helpful in identifying poorly worded questions and identifying areas that may need to be reviewed.

How can I give different numbers of points to different questions?

To change percent value of various test questions go to Grade tab and under Grading Options menu select "Modify Percent Values of Test Questions".

A dialog will open, where percent values of any and all test questions can be modified.

Please see video demo Applying Grading Options for a detailed example on how to apply various grading options.

How can I add points for non multiple-choice questions?

To specify extra points for non multiple-choice questions, select "Add Bonus/Extra Points..." (under Grading Options menu).

Up to 3 columns of extra points can be specified. For each bonus column, you can specify either the same number of bonus points for all students, or load individual number of points per student from a csv file.

Please see video demo Applying Grading Options for a detailed example on how to apply various grading options.

How do I start a new exam from a common template?

You can start a new exam by easily copying essential information from an existing exam file. Select File | New Exam from Existing Exam File, specify your existing exam file, and the program will copy your previous choices for answer sheet form and letter grade table.

Starting from the version of 2018.1.1., you can also start a new exam from a previously generated blank answer sheet. Drag-and-drop previously generated blank answer sheet file into Prepare Answer Sheet tab, (or select File | New Exam from Generated Answer Sheet File to specify such file), and the program will copy your previous choices for answer sheet form and letter grade table.

What are the best practices in organizing my exam files?

To help finding gyt (Grade Your Test) files, the best practice is to hierarchically organize your tests in the way most meaningful to you. For example, here how one of our users organizes her files in Windows Explorer:

Documents
└── Tests
    └── NYU
        ├── 2017
        |   └── Fall
        |       └── Bio101
        |           ├── Midterm:
        |           |   └── NYU-2017-Fall-Bio101-Midterm.gyt
        |           └── Final:
        |               └── NYU-2017-Fall-Bio101-Final.gyt
        └── 2016
            └── Spring
                ├── ...

Then she can quickly navigate and double-click on the right gyt file, which opens Grade Your Test program and loads the exam file specified.

Miscellaneous Tips

No need for all students' answer sheets to be in to get grades. The program scores answer sheets as soon as they are loaded, as long as grader's answer sheet (a sheet with correct answers) is loaded and selected. To pre-load a grader's answer sheet:

• load a grader answer sheet, as usual, as any other completed answer sheet
• select it in Grade tab ("Select answer sheet with correct answers:")
• optionally, specify your own Letter Grade Table. (In Grade tab, select Grading Options/Edit Letter Grade Table....)

Then, as soon as a new student answer sheet is loaded (one or all), the program grades it and immediately shows results, (including letter grades if Letter Grade Table is specified).

Alternatively, you can load students' and grader's answer sheets together, and "Select answer sheet with correct answers" later at your convenience.

For the best results in mark recognition, please consider taking a few moments just before exam to give your students brief instructions on how to fill out the forms, at least for the first time. As per our users' feedback, even a brief instruction to your class on how to specify ids and fill out circles dramatically reduces number of spurious errors.

When printing a blank answer sheet form, under Page Sizing and Handling section, please select "Actual size" option; otherwise, the form may be printed in reduced size.

When preparing answer sheet form, if you want to bold or italicize part of your Student Id Prompt, wrap corresponding phrase in <b>for bold</b> or <i>for italic</i>. For example,

Pdf slides of example exam, which was graded in the video, can be downloaded by clicking here.

Release notes for the latest versions can be found by clicking here.

Do you have any other tips you would like to share? Please e-mail us your tips and we'll include it in this section.