List Questions are similar to Blanks - Menu style and Blanks-Text style question types in terms of their application, except they only allow you to set a single response object in the question. They also offer a few major enhancements:
You can define multiple correct (and even incorrect but expected) answers
For each specified answer, you can control the amount of credit awarded for each specified answer.
For each specified incorrect answer, you can define response-specific comments (feedback).
You can define the display style for the student response input cells - either Text or Menu style display for student response objects (entry cells).
Graders can be set to 'exact' or more lenient 'relaxed' styles.
Create a new Inline Question, then define a list question within it using the Visual Editor.
default grader: "exact"
option: "relaxed" (set grader=menu)
option: "regex" (set grader=regex)
(This provides access to the student response set as a regular expression,
for interacting with custom graders created from EDU's Question API.)
default display: "textbox"
option: "menu"
blanks sizing: based on max of answer length
at least one answer field must give full credit
all other answers can be set for credit from 0-1 (specified in decimal numbers)
Grading is done by comparing the student response with each answer in order until a match is found, and the corresponding credit is then returned. If no match is found, the credit is zero. The emphasis on comparing in order is necessary because someone writing regular expression questions might well want to start with a very specific criteria for full credit and then allow more vague criteria for low credit.
Sticking with my abraham lincoln example, if I set
answer.1=(l|L)incoln@
credit.1=1.0
answer.2=(l|L).*@
credit.2=0.1@
then I would give full credit to Lincoln and lincoln, but 10% to any answer beginning with an "l" or "L". If I reversed the order of the two criteria it would be impossible to get full credit.
See Also:
Rules for Grading Free Response Questions