Ascend

Question pools and certification

A test → Questions per attempt and Fill the pool. A test can hold more questions than one attempt gives: each attempt draws from the test's pool, so a retake asks different questions and the questions are harder to pass around. A quiz or course can also be made a certification, which locks the settings a certification needs.

How a draw works

Each question belongs to an objective: the lesson it was written from, or, for a question written from documents, the document. When someone starts a test:

1. Ascend takes one question per objective, chosen at random, up to the test's Questions per attempt.
2. With more lessons than that, it chooses lessons spread evenly across the course. With fewer, it goes round them again and takes a second question from some.
3. On a retake, questions the person was given before are left out while the pool has others.
4. The answer options of each multiple-choice question are shuffled.

The person is scored on exactly the questions they were given. The answers are never sent to them.

Set up a pool

1. Open the test and press Questions per attempt. Enter how many each attempt gives, for example 8, and press Save. Leave it empty to give everyone every question.
2. Look at Question pool. It shows how many questions there are, how many each attempt draws, and a target of 5 × that number (40 for 8 per attempt), then how many questions each lesson or document holds.
3. Press Fill the pool, enter how many questions each lesson should have (about 5), and press Fill it. Ascend writes only what is missing, each question about that one lesson and different from those already there.
4. Check the questions as usual. A question's lesson is shown under it; to change it, press Edit and choose the lesson it tests.

Question pool warns when a lesson has fewer than 5 questions, when the pool is under its target, and when the pool is smaller than one attempt's draw (then everyone gets every question). A test with no questions at all says nobody can take it yet.

Written from the lessons

A course's module assessments and final exam are written from the lessons they cover: a module's assessment from that module's lessons, the final exam from every lesson in the course. Each question names the lesson it comes from, and a question that cites anything else is discarded. Questions only ask what the course teaches, so write the lessons first.

To write a test's questions from documents instead, open it, press Written from and choose Documents. A Quick Quiz is always written from its documents. Building a course

Generating many questions

Generate questions and Fill the pool write five questions at a time. A line under the test shows the progress, for example Writing questions… part 2 of 4 · 5 written so far, and Stop ends it, keeping what was written. If you leave the page, opening the test again carries on. Pressing Generate questions again while it is writing carries on with the same run rather than starting a second one. When it finishes, Ascend says how many were written, discarded and rejected, and how many parts could not be written; press it again to write what is missing.

Retire a question

Retire takes a question out of the pool: it is never drawn again, and it stays in the results of everyone who was given it. Bring back returns it. Use Delete only for a question nobody has been given.

How each question is doing

Under each question, the person who created the quiz or course and the account's owners and admins see how many people have answered it and how many got it right, counting each person once, the first time they were given it.

Possibly leaked appears when people have recently started getting a question right far more often than before: of at least 10 first answers, the recent half is right at least 30 points more often than the earlier half, and at least 80% of the time. It can mean the question is being passed around. Consider retiring it.

Certification

Certifications are issued by VeraGen. Certification is offered by VeraGen only for now, so the Certification setting appears only in the VeraGen account, where an account owner or admin can switch it on in Settings and press Save settings. In any other account the setting is not shown, and every course is an ordinary course. A certification:

• draws every attempt from each test's pool, 10 questions per test unless the test sets Questions per attempt;
• never shows the right answers, and nobody is shown how everyone else did;
• always asks for a name and email, and, on the public page, has each person confirm the email with a 6-digit code before their first attempt;
• lets each person start each test at most 3 times in any 3 months, counted by their email, whether they take it from the public page or signed in from My learning. An attempt left unfinished still counts. In My learning each test shows how many attempts are left; with none left it shows the date the next opens, and a fourth start is refused with that date;
• shows the result as the score, whether they passed, how many questions were right and the lessons to revisit, not the questions;
• switches refreshers off;
• issues a certificate, for the course's current version (V1, V2…), to each person who passes every module assessment and the final exam, from the public page or signed in from My learning. An ordinary course issues none. Certificates

While it is on, Show the right answers afterwards, Ask for a name and email, Send refreshers and Show each person how everyone else did are locked. A lesson's quick check is practice and has no limit.

If something goes wrong