ChemItem/Organic Question Bank Intro Page
Purpose
The purpose of this test item bank is to provide a set of examination and/or practice questions in organic chemistry and laboratory from which the user can draw items, selected from the keyword index, review them on screen, then download items in Microsoft Word to the user's computer for assembly, editing and printing. A primary object has been to prepare items in a controlled format using popular software. Thus items have been prepared using 12 point Helvetica font in Microsoft Word on the Macintosh computer, with standard margins. ChemDraw 3.0.2 Plus was used for the structures, Cricket Graph for the graphs, and Microsoft Excel for the tabular materials. Multipart questions are set up with each part as a separate drawing, with single section letter headings in MS Word, so that items can be edited easily and sections can be deleted by the user. It is possible after a little familiarity with content to assemble material appropriate for an hour examination in about ten minutes - free, we hope, of typographical errors. For our own use we have prepared and stored on our local computer an exam template which serves as a framework for assembly of exams and the user is encouraged to do the same.
How to Use the Organic Question Bank
The Question Bank is a searchable database of mostly organic chemistry questions which can be downloaded and used for exams or for practice.
The initial screen contains a scrollable list of topics. Choosing an item (by clicking on the item and then pressing the button) will allow the user to search all the sub-topics under that item. Then another scrollable list of topics is presented and the process continues. There are four levels of topics and a level of difficulty. Items may be selected for viewing by choosing sequentially narrower cuts from a series of up to four keywords which identify the item. Whenever the cut is smaller than five total items an option to view all items at that level is available. If the cut only contains one item, that item is automatically presented. A highly personal and arbitrary assessment of the degree of difficulty of the item is also available. The level assignment ranges from 1 (least difficult) to 5 (most difficult), with level 3 defined as "full or partial credit for a majority of average ('C') students".
At the end of the search, the matching questions are displayed in full on the screen. The user can then download the question in rich text format. (Use Microsoft Word to convert RTF files into text and graphics documents.)
Displayed below is a sample search. At first the user is presented with four topics, acidity, energetics, geometry, and resonance. Under these four topics are a total of ten questions. The user selects acidity. In the database, the only secondary topic beneath acidity is pKa. Since this is the only available option, the computer selects this automatically. The user is then given the sub-topics under pKa. The user selects rank order. There are a total of 2 questions under rank order, so the user selects All. The questions are then shown on the screen, with the option to download. (The links in this example do not go anywhere.)
Selecting Questions
The user should enter the test item bank through the keyword index, which provides primary, secondary, and tertiary classification of specific items, each identified by a serial number. Having selected an item of interest, the user should navigate to the item, and review it to determine its suitability. For those judged suitable, the user should click on the link and the item will be automatically downloaded to the user's computer. In certain items, symbols, subscripts and images may not appear correctly on screen, but upon downloading are quite fine. The process is repeated until all desired items are captured.
About the Questions
Many of the items are "concept questions", which are both characteristic of organic chemistry examinations and popular among faculty. Items are taken from examinations prepared by this writer over many years, many are original, some are from colleagues' examinations, and some come from the six or more textbooks we have used over time, with modifications. Many items have undergone extensive modification with reuse, and so the origins are often lost. None of the items are intentionally drawn directly from texts. The criterion that binds them together is that they have been judged to be effective on past examinations.
Submitting Your Own Questions
If you find the item pool useful and wish to contribute to it, your questions must be screened by Dr. Joseph Casanova. We are still working on a method for this, but it will probably involve attaching formatted items by e-mail to Dr. Casanova.
Comments about the Questions or Program
If you have comments, we are eager to hear from you. Finally, while we have striven to eliminate errors of fact or concept as well as those of typing, occasionally these may appear, and we would be grateful to learn about them. Please send these comments to jcasano@calstatela.edu.
If you find any problems with the actual search program or its interface, please email acknowledgements and trademarks
Acknowledgment is made to Dr. Marco Molinaro, who developed the Web site framework for this activity, to Bin P. Quan, who did much of the data entry, and to Paul Tero, who implemented the progam's framework, Grant#DUE-999455924 "Sweeping Change in Manageable Units: A Modular Approach to Chemistry Curricular Reform" of the National Science Foundation and a curriculum development grant from the California State Universities provided support for the effort.
Microsoft Word is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation. ChemDraw is a trademark of Cambridge Scientific Computing; Cricket Graph is a trademark of Cricket Software.
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Last modified: 7/20/02 at 6:05 PM
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