How do I allow students to choose from a set of prompts on exam?

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erinbreaux
Community Member

I've finished creating a Quiz (really an exam) in my Canvas course. I normally have three sections, which I've made into Question Sets: Matching, Quote ID ("Essay Question" type), and Short Answer (also "Essay Question" type).

I normally give students a choice in the last two sections. So there are 4 possible Quote IDs, and they choose 3 of them to do. For short answer, there are 6, but they only choose 3. I do this with my in-person exams.

I was trying to accomplish this with the online exam and thought I had by telling the last two question sets to "Pick 3." However, now that I did a preview of the exam, I think that the "Pick 3" means the computer will randomly select 3 of the 4 quotes to give students and randomly select 3 and of the 6 short answers to give students. This isn't what I wanted, since I want them to be able to choose the 3 that they can best answer.

Is there a setting in Canvas that I am missing? How could I do this? I know this kind of situation is common in exams, giving students a choice of prompts. I'm just not sure how to make this happen in Canvas.

1 Solution
dhulsey
Community Champion

Hi, Erin. You are right about what the Pick 3 a option will do: it serves up a random 3 out of 4 questions.

If it were me, I would accomplish your goal by using the "text (no question)" option on a question:

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Use that to present all of your options, and then follow that with three essay questions that say something like: Pick one of the topics presented above to answer this questions with a well-developed paragraph . . . "   -- or something like that.

Do you think that would work for you?

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