When creating an exam, you generally do not want two or more questions that are essentially the same to appear on the same exam.
PrimeExam prevents this by allowing similar questions to be matched. Matched questions are assigned the same question index, indicating that they belong to the same question group.
During exam generation, PrimeExam ensures that only one question from each matching group is selected.
When Should Questions Be Matched?
Questions should be matched when they test the same concept in essentially the same way.
Examples include:
- Two versions of the same question with different wording.
- Questions that differ only by numerical values.
- Questions that use different diagrams but test the same knowledge.
- Questions that have been revised over time but are still considered equivalent.
Matching questions helps increase the size of a question bank while preventing students from seeing multiple versions of the same question on a single exam.
Matching Questions from the Question Bank
To match questions directly from the Question Bank window:
- Open the Question Bank window.
- Select the desired question bank.
- Select two or more similar questions.
- Click the Match button.
The selected questions will be assigned the same question index.
Matching Questions Using Bulk Edit
Question matching can also be performed while using Bulk Edit.
To match questions during Bulk Edit:
- Open the Question Bank window.
- Select the desired question bank.
- Select two or more questions.
- Click Bulk Edit.
- In the Question Editor, click the Match button.
All selected questions will be assigned the same question index.
How PrimeExam Uses the Question Index
During exam generation, PrimeExam treats all questions with the same question index as members of the same matching group.
When one question from a matching group has been selected for an exam, the remaining questions in that group are excluded from further selection.
This ensures that each generated exam contains at most one version of a matched question.
Removing a Match
If questions should no longer be considered equivalent, they can be unmatched by assigning them different question indexes.
Once unmatched, each question is treated independently and may be selected separately during exam generation.