• In the Fill-in Excercise, student is shown a text with embedded answer entry spaces in certain parts of the text (such as words or numbers). The examiner determines the text, the places of the entry spaces and the correct answer options. The examiner must set the correct answers for the entry spaces.
  • One question can have many entry spaces for the embedded answers. The entry spaces can be text, numbers or characters.
  • One embedded answer can have several correct answer options, which are defined in the embedded answer's settings (instructions below: Creating a fill-in excercise).
    • Each embedded answer entry space
      • can have many correct options
      • can use an asterisk * as a wildcard at the beginning/end of a word, e.g. cat* cat, cats, caterpillar and catering are accepted
      • can determine whether the initial letter is case sensitive
      • can have a numerical answer and an acceptable range for it.
  • The question is given total points, which are divided equally among the entry spaces in the evaluation. It is not possible to set weights for the entry spaces.
    • For example, with the total score of the fill-in excercise being 5
      • If there are 5 entry spaces in the task, the score of one entry spaces is 1 point. For example, 2 out of 5 entry spaces correctly, the result is 2 points.
      • If there are 2 entry spaces in the task, the score for one space is 2.5 points. For example, 1 out of 2 entry spaces correct, the result is 2.5 points.
  • The fill-in excercise is automatically evaluated, i.e. it can be included in an automatically evaluated exam.

A fill-in excercise in the student's exam (the answer is written in the entry space). See picture below

The picture shows an example of a fill-in exercise in the student's exam view

Creating fill-in exercises 

1. Select question type: Fill-in exercise

In the picture, the question type is selected from the drop-down menu

2. Add the question text for the fill-in excercise. NOTE! If you copy the text from e.g. Word, paste it as plain text with the ctrl+shift+v keys.

3. Select the part the text you wish to add the entry space to and select the "abc - Embedded answer" icon from the editor's toolbar.

Adding an embedded answer space in the text editor

4. Enter the correct answers according to the instructions in EXAM or below. Set the embedded answer settings and click the OK button. The system shows embedded answer spaces and the correct answers on a yellow background.

  • Enter the correct answers
    • Use vertical bar ( | ) to separate correct answer options from each other. 
  • Use asterisk ( * ) as a wildcard to match any series of characters. For example
    • *ship|boat|ferry would match answers "ship", "flagship", "boat" and "ferry". If you really do want to match an asterisk or a vertical pipe then use a backslash like this: 10\*10=100
  • Select whether capitalization is important
  • If the answer is numeric, you can set the required precision for the answer

The picture shows the settings for a single embedded answer space

Space matters

  • The answer options are separated by | - character, which must not be preceded or followed by a space!


The picture shows an example of an embedded answer space added to the exercise with an alternative correct answer


5. Add the maximum points. You can also use decimals by entering the score in the field. Use a period as the decimal separator.

Additional information of the question

Image of the question's Additional information view on Exam's user interface

  • You can add other owners to the question (the question will appear in their question bank and they can edit it).
    • Find the user you want to add as an owner of the question and click the Add button. The question owner has full rights to edit the question, even if it is in another owner's question bank.
  • You can add an attachment to the question, which the student can open in the exam.
    • Note! Add an attachment in pdf, Word or image format (for other file formats, please check the software options of the exam computers). Do not use web links in the question or attachment, as access to the web from the exam computer is blocked.
  • You can write question instructions which will be displayed to the student during the exam.
  • You can add tags to categorize questions and make them easier to find in the question bank.

When you save a question, it will be added to the exam. Note If you have created a question in the question bank, you must add it to the exam from there.

The examination period and questions of the exam can be edited, even though the exam has been published. Editing options have been limited after the first exam time booking, for example shortening the period is not possible. The system informs you if editing possibilities have been limited.

Assessing the fill-in excercise

The evaluation view shows the original question, the student's answer, the number of correct answers and the total score.

Image of the evaluated fill-in exercise answer on the examiner's grading page

If you want to change the points given by Exam, you can put a new score in the Skip automatic points field below the task.

Image of editing the automatically calculated points

The points you corrected will appear in the score for the question and in the total score of the exam.

The picture shows an example of manually corrected grading on Exam's grading page

If the exam has automatic evaluation, changing the points does not affect the preliminary grade of the exam. The grade must be changed manually.


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