Texam

Create PARKIN01 exams for TeX

The code Texam produces a tex file ready to be converted by TeX into a dvi file. The drawback is that the difficulties of dealing with a word processing language are added to the difficulties of using Parkin01. The advantage is that TeX can handle multiple fonts, equations and figures. The result is a book quality exam. The RK-20's which measure the effectiveness of the exam increase noticeably over the old exams.

A good reference to the TeX language is Computers and Typesetting by Donald E. Knuth, published by Addison Wesley, 1986. In the physics department we use MiKTeX (free to download) with the WinEdt editor.

Create your question file following the format of one of the Example TEXAM question files. Of course, the macros section can and should be saved as a separate input file (I use que.tex which I have included with the sample files). The directions can also be saved separately if this is practical for you---that is, if you don't have to use different directions for each exam.

Some important things to remember

• The exam code requires that question file names are limited to 7 characters or less with the extension .que, and lines in the question file are limited to 80 characters or less.
• TeX doesn't care how long or short the lines are. It does, however, interpret a blank line or extra return as a new paragraph, so avoid putting those in a question. If you want to start a new line, use \hfil\break to end the line ( or you can use the macro \eol (end of line) that I defined in que.tex), then type your next line without any extra returns (you can put it on the next line, just don't put a blank line in there).
• Do not start a line in your question with a '{' (left brace). When the exam code reads this, it will interpret the left brace as the beginning of a set of answers, and you will get an error.
• Very important! If you use the % to put comments before a question, be sure to use two of them %% at the beginning of each comment. Using only one will cause an error you won't see until the exam is generated when it messes up the answers to the question prior to the %. If you don't catch it and the exams get printed that way, that question will have to be thrown out.

After creating your question file, texam quefile. Your output will be quefile.tex

I use a file called exam.tex to typeset quefile.tex where I input the macros file (que.tex) and any other file you may need (such as psfig.tex, etc.).