One of the great features of Lectora is being able to randomise your tests. This gives you the ability to 'shake it up a bit' when it comes to a course where a user goes through the test(s) more than once.

You can do this by creating a bank of questions, from which you can pull out any number to ask for each test. Depending on the number of questions and how many times the user is allowed to go though the test(s), each time the user can have a 'new' experience.

Not only can you randomise all questions within a test (this is done in Test Properties), you can also add Test Sections which allow you to segregate your questions into groups; and each Test Section has its own randomise option, allowing you to choose which sections to randomise. Here are some examples for using the randomise option:

You have a bank of 50 questions and want to ask 10 out of the 50:

• Under the Behaviour tab in the Test Properties, check the Randomly Select Pages checkbox, and set the Pages From Test to 10; no Test Sections required.

You have a group of 10 compulsory questions that everyone needs to answer, and then another random 10 from a bank of 50:

• Add the 10 compulsory questions into one Test Section, which you can randomise by checking the Randomly Select Pages checkbox under the Test Section’s Behaviour tab. Make sure that the Pages From Test is set to 10 (the total number of questions being asked).

• Add the bank of 50 into another Test Section, check the Randomly Select Pages checkbox under the Test Section’s Behaviour tab, and set the Pages From Test to 10.

Your questions have different point values or scores (some questions might equal 1 point, some 2 points etc.) and you want to ask a number of questions that will equal the same total score for each user taking the test:

• Group questions of the same point value or score into Test Sections, and then randomise each section and choose how many you want to ask from each. Say you want the total score to equal 20 points and you have questions that equal 1 point, 2 points and 5 points. Set the Page From Test under each section so that you have 6 from the 1 point section and 2 each from the 2 point and 5 point section. This will equal 20 points in total and each time the student goes through the test they will be asked different questions from these sections (depending on how many questions are in each section and how many times the student goes through the test).

You have a bank of questions that need to be categorised into topics:

• Group the questions into their relevant topics and create a Test Section for each topic. Check the Randomly Select Pages checkbox from under the Test Section’s Behaviour tab, and set the Pages From Test value to the number of questions you want to ask.

Happy randomising!