Exam forms are formatted using a simple markup language called ETX (short for "evaluation text"). ETX files are plain text and end with an ".etx" extension. You may use a word processor to format ETX files, but the final results must be converted to plain text before they can be used on the server. XAM will generate test forms and question pages dynamically based on these files. ETX files have two parts, a header with information about the form followed by the form elements. The header and form elements are separated from each other by blank lines. For more detailed information on the broad range of ETX features please see the documentation for evalCGI.

An ETX exam header has consists of two lines. The first line becomes the title for the form. The second line is used by EvalSuite to determine the status of the form. By default, the most appropriate status line for an XAM form is 'none,none,exam'. The words 'none,none' are placeholders for access specifications. Since XAM uses a seating chart to control access, this information is ignored. The third item 'exam' is important for two reasons. It identifies the form as a high stakes exam and at the same time prevents access from the rest of EvalSuite.

A Very Big Exam
none,none,exam

?First Question
...

?Second Question
...

Each question consists of a question stem and one or more answer choices followed by a blank line. Question stems begin with a '?' character. In the case of single best answer multiple choice questions, each answer choice appears on a line by itself preceded by a '@' character. The correct answer is marked with a '*' character just after the '@' sign.

?What color is the sky?
@Red
@Green
@*Blue

?Who is now president?
line George W. Bush
...
?Describe your vacation:
text

It is possible to assign questions to one or more catagories for subsequent reporting and analysis. For example, an exam might have questions that apply to either theory or practice. Catagory tags can be added between '[]' characters just after the initial '?' in the question stem. Multiple catagory tags are delimited by a ';' character.

?[theory]First question?

?[practice]Second...?

?[theory;practice]Third...?

XAM supports a limited number of text formatting tags summarized in the this table. To prevent conflicts with dynamic page generation, the system will ignore other HTML tags when they occur.

In addition, ETX files may contain character "entities" of the form &something; where "something" is the name or number of a special character. For example, the sequence &copy; becomes the copyright symbol '©'. HTML reserves the characters '<', '>', and '&'. XAM will transform them into the entities &lt;, &gt;, and &amp; unless they appear as part of a supported tag or special character definition.

XAM supports several media file formats by way of a special markup format. The file name must appear between '{=' and '=}' tags. How the media are displayed varies somewhat depending on the context:

• Single JPG or GIF files will be displayed 'in line' as part of the question page itself.
• When there is more than one image, small thumbnails will appear linking to the full size versions. You have the option to provide your own thumbnail images (they must be 80x80 pixels and end in '-t.jpg' or '-t.gif' to match the larger image they represent).
• Other media files will appear as generic thumbnail links (movie, text, etc.).

{=mypict.jpg=}

{=mypict-t.jpg=}

There are two ways to link HTML text to a question. The first method is an extension of the image technique outlined above. A generic thumbnail link will appear as outlined above. The second method allows hypertext within the question stem itself. The syntax is similar, beginning and ending with '{}', the hot text appears first, followed by a '|' character, and finally the file name.

{=mytext.html=}

{hot words|mytext.html}