Improve clarity of number line 3

[imranghory]

A lot of users seem to think that the question is asking what the value is at the orange dot (for example bug #18092 but at least several dozen have been closed as notabug).

To try and improve this I've made two changes:

1. I've stopped it asking the question "What number does the orange dot represent?" as this essentially duplicates the number line 2 questions, and if users get that as the first question they may assume all of the questions are asking them to do the same.

2. I've changed the strong tags to highlight the important words in the question sentence more clearly

http://sandcastle.khanacademy.org/pull/18104/

[Christi]

For 1) I would keep the question since being able to distinguish is an important skill.

2. possibly highlight the important words in the first hint rather than changing the question. true mastery would be being able to figure out the question without the hint of keywords highlighted telling you what to look for.

Note: some of the notabugs show the student had read the question, but didn't understand, often watching the hints and stopping too soon or reading the markings on the hints incorrectly. A change in the hints might solve this problem easier and key the "true mastery" aspect of the problem

[imranghory]

While I'd agree being able to distinguish is an important skill, shouldn't exercises focused on testing the skill in question (number line) rather than secondary skills (like distinguishing) ? - especially since many of the users of this level of question are likely to be fairly young.

I think mostly when the users read the hints they figure out what's wrong, but I think the questions should be clearer.

[Christi]

Having been through a number of the issues, many of them are from students who have read through the hints and haven't followed the instructions. This is a relatively low incident "issue".

From a pedagogical point of view, the less obvious the hints in the problem the more likely we are testing for actual proficiency/mastery of the concept.

This particular exercise is at a 6-7 grade level. Having a question every so often in a skill that should be mastered shouldn't be a major problem, and part of this exercise is distinguishing between whether we are adding, subtracting, or (in the case of the problem you are trying to remove) staying the same.