What does "Generate Possible Solutions" do?

[daniel_ferrante]

I am creating a formula question for a quiz.

Let's say that my question on the quiz is:

"What is 5 times [X]?"

And I give a range of X as 1 - 5 (set to zero decimal places).

I would expect Canvas to be able to randomly choose one of the following possibilities:

"What is 5 times 1?"

"What is 5 times 2?"

"What is 5 times 3?"

"What is 5 times 4?"

"What is 5 times 5?"

And if I define the formula as: 5 * x, I should have the following possible solutions:

5

10

15

20

25

However, if I attempt to save the question at this point, Canvas tells me I need to generate at least one possible solution.

If I do just ONE possible solution, the quiz will only ever generate one question - for the sake of argument, let's say it's, "What is 5 times 2?"

No matter how many times I reload the quiz, I ALWAYS get, "What is 5 times 2?"

If I tell the quiz to generate 5 possible solutions, it will do that, but NOT using all the possible values of X (1 - 5). It will simply generate random  values for X between 1 and 5, but it might repeat some of the values.

I have to use 10 possible solutions and hope that it will generate at least on instance of each possible value of X.

I have a few questions:

1. What purpose does "Generate Possible Solutions" serve? What exactly is it doing in the quiz and how it is beneficial to the person making the quiz or the student taking it?

2. Why is it that Canvas seemingly cannot generate questions using all values in a range? I understand that numbers are infinite, etc. But if I tell it to use 1 - 5 with no decimals, it should be able to randomly generate 5 different questions.

[rrfischer]

The main reason you need to generate possible solutions is because if you were to have a more complicated equation, for example

"What is [x] times [y] divided by [z]"

range of X as 1 - 10

range of Y as 1 - 10

range of Z as 1 - 10

Thats 1000 possible versions of the question it would have to generate. That would take up A LOT of time and memory in the system. This increases not only how long it takes to generate the question but also potentially the time to generate a specific quiz. So instead it asks you how many versions of the question you want to generate. 

For the simpler questions like yours, it can be rather annoying, but all you need to do would be enter maybe 15-20 where it asks for the possible solutions and you'll get all the possible solutions.

Sorry that its so frustrating, and I hope my answer clears up your confusion a bit

[daniel_ferrante]

Hi Renee,

Thank you for the response! That makes sense.

Do you know why it can generate multiple instances of the equation with the same value(s)?

[rrfischer]

That is just due to the way it randomly generates equations. Every time it generates a new solution, it pulls from the same set of possible values, with replacement.

I don't know why it does not check for duplicates, though.

[d00057923]

Wish someone would come up with a way to have it use each iteration once.