TESTER LE  Home



May 2, 2009

    Tester Subject Packs are no longer maintained and are out of date.

    Go to iTester for the latest tests.  

    Tim Lovett May 2, 2009

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Download Instructions

1. Download the latest Tester zip file(s) to your computer. (If you have a previous installation, delete the lot and replace with this one)
2. Unzip it to any place on your computer drive or USB memory stick. Make sure you extract them!
The file structure below should be loaded onto your drive during the unzipping.

3. To run Tester, double click on Tester536LE.exe   (Or a later version...)
4. You can repeat this process to download each subject you want to do.



Login

There is no Student ID number or login number required. As usual, press Get Test to choose from list of tests.
 
  

Comparing Study Mode to Exam Mode.

Study Mode is for home use and college practice, Exam Mode is for assessment and can only be done at the college.
In Study Mode you can quit at any time, but Exam Mode running a 'compulsory' test requires all questions to be attempted.     As the name implies, you are supposed to study the notes, not just write a list of answers to copy.To encourage this, TesterLE provides the following:
Multiple choice questions and their pictures are displayed, but the answer options are hidden. These questions are intended to point the student to appropriate topics to help prepare for the test. No marks are counted for these questions during Study Mode.
Maths questions are fully featured but have a wider margin in the answer given. TesterLE will mark the question to the usual tolerance (typically +/- 1%). If the user fails to enter a number within this range an error message displays the answer in a wider range, with random limits between 10 and 25% above and below the correct solution. Unit multipliers are tolerated. Marks are tallied.



Tester provides correction hints for wrong answers. In this example, the exact solution was 1.91295 kN.
Since Tester allows 1% tolerance, anything from 1.893821 kN to 1.93208 kN is considered correct.
However, the exact solution is not simply midway between the 10-25% limits. In the message given above, the average value is actually 1.8065 kN, which is outside the 1% range..
During EXAM MODE, the correct solution is displayed AFTER the user got it wrong.

Is it possible to run TesterLE in Exam Mode?

TesterLE cannot run in Exam Mode because the functionality is missing. Exam mode is only available in the college because the student results and ID data are kept on the network.

What is the pass mark?

The passmark can vary depending on the test and the demands of the subject. For most tests, a pass will be in the range from 65% to 85%. Each test has a specified pass mark which appears on the top bar during the exam. Check the rules for whether you may repeat the test. Here are some examples;
  1. No repeats allowed
  2. A certain number of repeats is allowed
  3. Repeats require a higher pass mark
  4. A certain number of repeats is allowed with marks being averaged (this is the default rule unless teacher specifies otherwise. Usually maximum of 2 or 3 attempts)
  5. Unlimited repeats allowed with marks averaged from earlier tests

Rules for Multiple Choice tests: 
Students are not permitted to copy down the question options displayed on the screen during the test.
Negative marking is usually applied, multiple, which means a typical 4 choice question will lose approx 1/3 marks for wrong answers. This is because that question has 75% chance of wrong answer and 25% chance of correct answer - by pure guessing.

Rules for Maths-based questions: 
There are no rules for maths-based questions, unless stated by the teacher.
For some tests, certain software (e.g. Excel) is detected by Tester and must be shut down to continue.
Negative marking does not apply to maths questions.
80% of marks are allocated to the correct numerical answer.
20% of marks are for correct base units according to the chosen multiplier. (The number must correspond to the multiplier)

About the Program

Specifications

Tester is written in VisualBasic by Tim Lovett. The encryption uses modified code for the Blowfish cipher (Bruce Schneier) and with VB by DI Management (http://www.di-mgt.com.au/crypto.html#BlowfishVB)

How it works:

Encryption;
Encryption is essential because the students download test files that contain sensitive information  (i.e. the correct answers and formulas). The Blowfish algorithm (128 bit) is a recognised secure cipher that is in the public domain. Blowfish is a keyed, symmetric block cipher, designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier and included in a large number of cipher suites and encryption products. Blowfish provides a good encryption rate in software and no effective cryptanalysis of it has been found to date. Compared to the early versions of Tester (before Nov 15, 2008), the decryption  take a little longer - typically up to several seconds for a 50 question multiple choice test. (Mathematics tests tend to be a lot shorter since there is less text). No decryption occurs during the running of test.


Tester LE Update History
'Get rid of testlist file (auto folder search to get test names)-----------------------DONE 20081104 510
'Alternative units - degs/radians, Nm/Nmm (both ways)----------------------------------DONE 20081108 511
'Recently used units ------------------------------------------------------------------DONE 20081110 511
'If units are wrong, ignore prefix. Correct units given in exam mode only -------------DONE 20081112 512
'Better encryption: Blowfish 128bit, saved as Radix64 to avoid LF etc -----------------DONE 20081115 514
'Test(ReadData.frm) faster: Read only headers, then whole test on "Run Test" ----------DONE 20081117 515
'Merged Radix64, Pallete colors, pretty icon, a bug or 2 ------------------------------DONE 20081124 517
'Generate html full report ------------------------------------------------------------DONE 20081129 520
'Modified results file (extra comma), Reports in student number & surname order--------DONE 20081201 521
'Added Multi-Select questions. 77 selection labels to suit matching images-------------DONE 20090221 525
'Disable x_ images in study mode ------------------------------------------------------DONE 20090223 525
'Fixed login bypass bug and test list not displayed in login page----------------------DONE 20090226 526
'New header with passmark, alphabetic results string (gotit$)--------------------------DONE 20090228 527
'Bug fixes: Login results, Quit after save, Number units, new Shuffler-----------------DONE 20090306 529
'Atan2 (Inverse Tangent in 360 degree notation), Excel detector------------------------DONE 20090307 530
'Continuous result saving, picture label, Report average div by 0 bug------------------DONE 20090314 531
'Fixed negative answer bug in SigFigs sub, added Debugger form-------------------------DONE 20090320 532
'Resizable DoTest form down to 800 px. Removed TAG/UNTAG. Fixed Predition bug----------DONE 20090403 534
'Added units: km/h --------------------------------------------------------------------DONE 20090406 535
'Fixed zero answer bug, more units, backup AFTER display of next question (faster)-----DONE 20090411 536