Randex: Randomized Exams

Randex is a library that creates exams by randomizing multiple-choice questions selected from a user-defined pool of questions. The final exam is generated as a LaTeX document and compiled into a PDF. Multiple exams can be created at once.

🚀 Quick Start

Install randex:

pipx install randex

Download examples with questions:

randex download-examples

Validate the questions in the examples:

randex validate examples/en/folder_* -t examples/en/template-exam.yaml -o tmp --overwrite

Create a batch of exams with random questions:

randex batch "examples/en/folder_*" 5 -n 2 -t examples/en/template-exam.yaml -o tmp --overwrite --clean

Create a csv file with random answers to the exams in the batch:

randex random-answers -e tmp/exams.yaml

Grade the exams in the batch:

randex grade -e tmp/exams.yaml -g tmp/answers.csv

📦 Installation

Randex requires Python version 3.10 or higher and latexmk.

Randex

To install Randex, run:

pipx install randex

latexmk

In order to compile the LaTeX files, you need to install latexmk,

From here:

Latexmk is a Perl script which you just have to run once and it does everything else for you... completely automagically.

and here

Latexmk is also available at CTAN at https://ctan.org/pkg/latexmk/, and is/will be
in the TeXLive and MiKTeX distributions.

If you have already Latex installed in your system, you will most probably have already latexmk installed as well.

🔧 Randex Commands

randex download-examples

To download the latest examples from GitHub, run the following command:

randex download-examples

randex validate

This command validates a single question or all questions under a folder. Execute:

randex validate "examples/en/folder_*" -t examples/en/template-exam.yaml -o tmp --overwrite

to validate all the questions under the folder examples/en that contains subfolders with questions. It will use the configuration from the file examples/en/template-exam.yaml. The LaTeX compilation will run inside the tmp folder. The --clean option will remove all intermediate files created by LaTeX, and the -a flag will show the correct answers in the produced PDF. Open the PDF file inside tmp to validate that all questions appear correctly.

Run:

randex validate --help

to see the help message for the command.

randex batch

To create a batch of exams with random questions, execute:

randex batch "examples/en/folder_*" 5 -n 2 -t examples/en/template-exam.yaml -o tmp --overwrite --clean

This command will create 5 exams using the questions inside the 3 folders with names folder_0, folder_1, and folder_2 using the configuration from the file examples/en/template-exam.yaml. The --clean option will remove all intermediate files created by LaTeX. The -n option specifies the number of questions randomly chosen from each folder. It can appear once, meaning all folders will contribute the same number of questions, or multiple times, e.g., -n 2 -n 1 -n 3, indicating the first folder will contribute 2 questions, the second folder will contribute 1 question, and the third folder will contribute 3 questions. The batch size (5 in this example) specifies the number of exams to create.

Grade

First create a batch of exams in a tmp folder. Then create a csv file with random answers to the exams,

randex random-answers -e tmp/exams.yaml

Then grade the exams,

randex grade -e tmp/exams.yaml -g tmp/answers.csv

The -n option can be used to specify the negative score for each wrong answer. If not provided, the negative score is computed as 1 / (number of answers - 1) for each question. Set it to 0 to disable the negative scoring.

📁 Randex Data Scheme

Randex requires two types of data files to create the exams.

template-exam.yaml File

The template-exam.yaml file is a YAML file that describes the LaTeX file that will produce the exam. It contains the following keys:

• documentclass (optional): String with the documentclass command of the file. Only the exam class is supported. Default:

  \documentclass[11pt]{exam}

• prebegin (optional): String containing everything that goes before the \begin{document} command. Default:

  \usepackage{amsmath}
  \usepackage{amssymb}
  \usepackage{bm}
  \usepackage{geometry}
  
  \geometry{
      a4paper,
      total={160mm,250mm},
      left=15mm,
      right=15mm,
      top=20mm,
  }
  
  \linespread{1.2}
  \pagestyle{head}
  \runningheadrule

• postbegin (optional): String with all the commands right after the "\begin{document}" command. Default: empty string.
• preend (optional): String with all the commands right before the "\end{document}" command. Default: empty string.
• lhead (optional): String that is displayed on the left part of the head. Default: empty string
• chead (optional): String that is displayed on the center part of the head. Default: empty string

The right part of the head is reserved for the serial number of the exam.

questions.yaml File

Each question is written in a YAML file with the following keys:

• question (required): String with the question. Do not use double quotes around the string.
• answers (required): List of strings with the answers. Do not use double quotes around the strings.
• right_answer (required): Integer indicating the correct answer. The answer is non-negative and less than the length of the answers list.

The questions YAML files should be organized inside folders.

The randex commands take the template-exam.yaml file and the folders containing the questions as inputs.

📄 License

Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. Commercial use is prohibited without prior permission.