Quizzer

PowerPoint is usually used to convey information to someone other than its user, the presenter. In this project, you turn the tables, and use it to convey, or even teach, information to yourself. You'll write a quiz program that can present questions and their answers to you, allow you to grade your performance, and present your score at the end. This program could be used to drill your French vocabulary, practice historical dates and places, or help you memorize math or science equations.

Instructions

The project can be divided into three parts, one of which you should be thinking about and doing outside of class. For that part you should be collecting ten questions and answers to use as quiz material. The second part is a standard PowerPoint slide show that requires no programming. On top of that we will build the third part, an enhancement for scorekeeping and reporting. This part requires some fairly simple coding.

Standard

• 1. Start PowerPoint and create a new presentation called Quizzer. You will eventually add code, so if you are using Office 2010, save it as a PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation. An extension of .pptm will be added to the name you type in.

  2. On the title page, which is automatically created for you, add a title for the quiz.

  3. Add a subtitle

  4. Start your quiz by adding a New Slide from the Home tab to hold your question and answer. The question should appear right away. The answer will appear after you click. If your question will fit into a slide title, add a Title and Content slide. If the question is longer, you might instead add a Two Content slide.

  5. Click to add the question.

  6. Click to add the answer.

  7. The answer should not appear right away, but instead require some indication from the user that it is time to proceed. That indicator will be a mouse click. Choose the Animations tab. While the cursor is still in the answer area, select a kind of animation such as Fade. After an animation is chosen, Start: should become active. From its choices, choose On Click.

  8. While you are at it, add a transition from the Transitions tab. This determines how the slide first appears. You can test your transition and animations either by clicking on the stars next to the slide preview or by running the show. On the Slide Show tab, click on From Beginning (F5) or From Current Slide.

  9. Insert another slide for the question and answer that should appear after the first. Be sure to add an animation so that the answer is not displayed right away. Further transitions are optional. You might like to give them all a try anyway.

  10. Repeat adding 8 or more slides with questions, answers, and animations.

  11. You need a different kind of slide at the very end. This is the slide that will allow you to display statistics about your performance. Give it a title such as Score. Your presentation should work already. Instead of clicking, you can also use the arrow keys to move through the presentation.

Enhanced

• 1. Scorekeeping will take place separately from the presentation. You will insert actions into the show. When a Text Box on a page is clicked, the Action will run a macro and play a sound. Inside the text box is a symbol that hints at what will happen. Place the first Text Box on the title slide by clicking on Text Box on the Insert tab and drawing one on the screen.

  2. For text find an appropriate symbol in a Wingdings Font or the like.

  3. To emphasize that the scorekeeping is a separate enhancement to the regular presentation, give the symbol a color. That can be arranged from the Home tab. If you want to center the symbol's Text Box, use the Align button on the Format tab.

  4. The specific animation is not critical, but rather than starting On Click, it should start With Previous. This will show the initial symbol starting with the slide and the symbols on the question/answer slides with the answers rather than right away with the questions.

  5. Make an animation for TextBox. Make sure the Text Box, not it's contents is selected. From the Insert tab, select Action. The Action Settings dialog is where you will arrange to Run Macro shortly. For now, just Play sound. Selection one of the available sounds.

  6. On the first of the question and answer slides, add three different text boxes with symbols to indicate correct answers, incorrect answers, and inconclusive answers or skipped questions. Each of these will be scored differently during the quiz.

  7. To each attach an action which will play a different sound. Skip adding the text boxes to the other nine questions, because they will be copied to those slides later.

  8. On the last slide, add a fifth kind of symbol in it's own Text Box. When this one is clicked, a dialog box will appear with the scores. Attach a sound as well.

  9. Before you copy from the first question/answer slide to all the others, it's important that it is completely working, and that won't be the case until the code is added. Configure the Developer tab and then start Visual Basic. Right click on the project and Insert a Module.

  10. You'll type the first few lines of code, but then copy the rest. Those first lines are these:

• 1. Download the rest of the code and copy it from the browser or an editor just after the code above.

  2. After this code is available, it is possible to complete configuration of the animations. Find and select the first one on the title slide, click Animation on the Insert tab again, check that your old specification for the sound is still present, then select Run Macro and specify start.

  3. Find the last one on the score slide. Configure the finish macro to run there.

  4. On the first question and answer page, configure the correct answer Text Box to run green, the incorrect answer to run red, and the inconclusive answer to run yellow. In the next step you will copy these nine times, so it would be a good idea to check that these work by running the show, clicking on the symbols, and making sure the score is actually displayed at the end of the show.

  5. When the test runs successfully, select all three text boxes from the one question and answer slide and paste them on all the others slides. The same global functions should be called from each slide, so there is no reason to have to specialize them.

Optional

Thus far the instructions have described creation of a themeless presentation. Click on the Design tab and there explore the possibilities for themes, colors, fonts, effects, etc. See if you can make studying interesting.

Delivery

When your project runs as it is supposed to and you have aced the quiz at least once, save the file and send it attached to an email to the instructor or transfer it via USB drive.

Grading

Points are awarded in the categories below.

• 1. Quizzer with an extension of .pptm

  2. Add a title for the quiz.

  3. Add a subtitle

  4. Add a New Slide

  5. Click to add the question

  6. Click to add the answer

  7. Select a kind of animation. Choose On Click.

  8. Add a transition from the Transitions tab.

  9. Insert another slide with animation.

  10. Add 8 or more slides with questions, answers, and animations (4 points)

  11. A title such as Score

  12. Place the first Text Box on the title slide

  13. Find an appropriate symbol in a Wingdings Font or the like.

  14. Give the symbol a color

  15. Start With Previous

  16. Make an animation for TextBox and Play sound

  17. Add three different text boxes with symbols (3 points)

  18. To each attach an action which will play a different sound (3 points)

  19. On the last slide, add a fifth kind of symbol and attach a sound as well.

  20. Right click on the project and Insert a Module

  21. Type the first few lines of code

  22. Download the code and copy it

  23. Select Run Macro and specify start

  24. Configure the finish macro

  25. On the first question and answer page, configure the Text Boxes

  26. Select all three text boxes and paste them on all the others slides