Our final exam in strategic management is worth 60% of our final mark and consists entirely of multiple choice questions. our teacher gave us a booklet of 115 multiple choice questions to study, along with the answers
Sitting down and reading through all the questions seemed like a highly boring and inefficient way of studying, so instead i made a program to help me
I started by scanning the 25-page document in microsoft word with an OCR scanner. i then was able to quickly create a database that contains the answer, along with the questions & choices, which looks like this:
A
Research suggests that strategic management evolves through four sequential phases in organizations. The first phase is
A) basic financial planning.
B) forecast-based planning.
C) internally-oriented planning.
D) externally-oriented planning.
E) strategic management.
D
Under the phase of strategic management, strategic information is available to
A) operational personnel.
B) middle management.
C) the top management responsible for decision making.
D) people throughout the organization.
E) none of the above
B
Organizational performance can be indicated by:
A) lack of labor unions
B) outcomes, processes and capabilities.
C) dividends declared and paid.
D) assets, liabilities and equity.
E) an organization's size.
Next, I put together a quick VB application that consists of a text box containing the current question and choices, and 5 buttons to select the answer. It will pull out a random question from the database and randomize the order the choices are listed in each time
(http://www.valhallalegends.com/spht/images/studysm.gif)
Option Explicit
Private Questions As Collection
Private Answers As New Collection
Private CurrentAnswer As String
Private CurrentAnswerEx As String
Private Streak As Long
Private Sub cmdAnswer_Click(Index As Integer)
If CurrentAnswer = cmdAnswer(Index).Caption Then
Streak = Streak + 1
MsgBox "Good job!" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
"The answer was: " & CurrentAnswer & vbCrLf & _
"Streak: " & Streak, vbInformation, "Correct!"
Else
Streak = 0
MsgBox "The answer was: " & CurrentAnswer & CurrentAnswerEx, vbExclamation, "Incorrect!"
End If
GetNextQuestion
End Sub
Private Sub ReadQuestions()
Dim FreeNum As Long
Dim s As String
Dim adds As String
Set Questions = Nothing
Set Questions = New Collection
If Len(Dir(App.Path & "\smquestions.txt")) Then
FreeNum = FreeFile
Open App.Path & "\smquestions.txt" For Input As #FreeNum
Do While Not EOF(FreeNum)
Line Input #FreeNum, s
If Len(s) = 0 Then
adds = Replace(adds, vbCrLf & "A)", vbCrLf & vbTab & "A)")
adds = Replace(adds, vbCrLf & "B)", vbCrLf & vbTab & "B)")
adds = Replace(adds, vbCrLf & "C)", vbCrLf & vbTab & "C)")
adds = Replace(adds, vbCrLf & "D)", vbCrLf & vbTab & "D)")
adds = Replace(adds, vbCrLf & "E)", vbCrLf & vbTab & "E)")
Questions.Add adds
adds = ""
Else
adds = adds & s & vbCrLf
End If
Loop
Close #FreeNum
End If
End Sub
Private Sub GetNextQuestion()
Dim NextQuestion As String
Dim s
Dim i As Long
Dim n As Long
NextQuestion = Questions.Item(Int((Questions.Count * Rnd) + 1))
s = Split(NextQuestion, vbCrLf & vbTab)
s(5) = Left(s(5), Len(s(5)) - 2) ' remove trailing vbCrLf
For i = 1 To 5
Answers.Add s(i)
Next i
For i = 1 To 5
n = Int((Answers.Count * Rnd) + 1)
s(i) = Answers.Item(n)
If Left(s(i), 1) = Left(NextQuestion, 1) Then
CurrentAnswer = cmdAnswer(i - 1).Caption
CurrentAnswerEx = Mid(s(i), 2)
End If
Mid(s(i), 1, 1) = cmdAnswer(i - 1).Caption
Answers.Remove n
Next i
txtQuestion.Text = Mid(NextQuestion, 4, InStr(NextQuestion, vbCrLf & vbTab) - 4) & vbCrLf & _
vbTab & s(1) & vbCrLf & _
vbTab & s(2) & vbCrLf & _
vbTab & s(3) & vbCrLf & _
vbTab & s(4) & vbCrLf & _
vbTab & s(5) & vbCrLf
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Load()
Randomize
ReadQuestions
GetNextQuestion
End Sub
Well, i must get back to studying now
Turn that into your teacher. Maybe (s)he'll give you full credit for the exam! :D
i wish my exams still had questions that easy.
Just a suggestion, but you really should make the answer choices random. Otherwise, your mind will most likely associate the questions with the letter value (A, B, C, D, or E) instead of the actual answer.
Quote from: MyndFyre[vL] on December 04, 2007, 04:55 PM
Turn that into your teacher. Maybe (s)he'll give you full credit for the exam! :D
I'm sure strategic management teachers will be in shock and awe when one of their students used VB6 to script a quick random multiple choice question-er. IMO what you should've done instead of scanning it, is typing them in. Typing a 25 page document isn't too impractical, and it'd help you actually remember the questions/answers.
Quote from: Andy on December 04, 2007, 05:38 PM
Just a suggestion, but you really should make the answer choices random. Otherwise, your mind will most likely associate the questions with the letter value (A, B, C, D, or E) instead of the actual answer.
Yeah, i realized that, and it does do that. see getnextquestion()
Quote from: brew on December 04, 2007, 06:05 PM
IMO what you should've done instead of scanning it, is typing them in. Typing a 25 page document isn't too impractical, and it'd help you actually remember the questions/answers.
I considered that, but i'm not the fastest nor accurate typer (especially if i have to study it while typing). i figure i'd learn at a lot faster pace using the program in the time it would've taken to type it all up rather than scan it
Good job, I did the same thing back in 7th grade for the periodic table and the elements.