Managing answer keys across multiple exam versions

The biggest worry about using several exam versions is not making them. It is marking them. Specifically: what if a stack of Version B papers gets marked with the Version A key?

This guide covers how to stop that from happening, and what to do if it already has. It all comes back to one rule: each answer key belongs to one paper. A key is only correct for the version it was made from.

Why the wrong key is hard to notice

You might expect a paper marked with the wrong key to score close to zero. It doesn’t.

On a question with four options, the wrong key will still match the right answer about one time in four, just by chance. So on a 40-question exam, a student would get around ten marks for free, scattered across the paper.

The result looks like a class that did badly, with a few students who did oddly well. That is easy to put down to “they didn’t revise,” especially late at night. That is why it is worth setting up habits that prevent it.

Label versions clearly

Use numbers for versions, not letters. If your answer options are A, B, C and D, a paper called “Version A” uses the same letter for two different things. “Set 1” and “Set 2” can’t be confused with an answer. ExamShuffle lets you label sets by letter or number when you choose how many versions to make.

Put the label on every page. Use the page header, not just the first page. Pages get separated.

Put the label on the answer sheet too, if you use one. Ask students to write their set number when they write their name, before they start. If you leave it until the end, many will forget.

Make the key’s label big. Put the set number at the top of the key in large print, so you can tell two keys apart at a glance.

Keep each key with its paper

Save each version and its key with matching names:

• midterm-set-1.pdf and midterm-set-1-key.pdf
• midterm-set-2.pdf and midterm-set-2-key.pdf

Avoid names like key-final.pdf or key-final-v2-USE-THIS.pdf.

Don’t remake the versions after printing. If you shuffle again after printing, the new versions are different papers, and the printed keys no longer match them. In ExamShuffle, the same seed always produces the same papers, so a lost key can be regenerated. Even so, print each key at the same time as its paper.

Check before you hand anything out

This takes about five minutes.

1. Count the questions in each version. They should all be the same. A version that lost a question while you were editing can’t be marked out of the same total.
2. Check three questions per version against the key: the first, the last and one from the middle. Work out the answer from the paper first, then look at the key. If you read the key first, you tend to see what you expect.
3. Check the header on a page from the middle of each stack, not the cover page.
4. Make sure each key is the one printed with its paper, not an older draft.

Mark one version at a time

Before you mark anything, sort the papers into one pile per version. While you mark Set 1, keep only the Set 1 key on your desk. Put the other keys away.

This matters most if you mark one question across all papers at a time (all of question 7, then all of question 8). That is a good way to mark consistently, but you are no longer reading whole papers, so you won’t notice that a paper is from a different version. Sorted piles fix that.

Record the version next to each student’s mark in your gradebook. It takes one extra column, and if something goes wrong you will need it.

If a paper has been marked with the wrong key

You will usually find out when a student shows you a paper with correct answers marked wrong.

1. Stop marking. Don’t keep going while you work it out.
2. Find the affected pile, not just the one paper. If one paper got the wrong key, the papers marked around it almost certainly did too.
3. Re-mark the whole pile with the correct key. Don’t just fix the questions where the two keys differ. Patching is slow and easy to get wrong. Re-marking from scratch is simpler and you can be sure of the result.
4. If marks have already been released, tell everyone who sat that version, in writing, including students whose marks went up. If you only tell the students who lost marks, the correction looks like it only happened where someone complained.
5. Start recording which version each student sat, if you weren’t already.

Summary

• Build each key by reading its own paper from start to finish. Never adjust another version’s key. Making versions in Word explains why.
• Label each paper and key with the set number, on every page.
• Print each key with its paper, and file them together.
• Check a few answers per version before the exam.
• Sort by version and mark with one key on the desk.

None of this is difficult. It is worth doing every time because the mistake it prevents is so hard to spot.