Exercises

Many exams ask several questions about one piece of material: a newspaper article, a chart, a table of opening hours. In an exam deck that material is written once, with its questions under it. Together they form an exercise: one card, whose questions are each asked and scored on their own.

The material can be any Markdown: paragraphs, images, tables, audio, a callout.

There are two ways to write an exercise. Both go under a heading at your profile’s card level (## in the Exams profile).

Note

Exercises need Decks 2.12.0 or DecksMD 1.3.0. Older versions show an exercise as an ordinary card or flag it as an invalid question, and cannot install directory packages that contain exercises. The demo exam note (command Create demo exam deck) ends with one example of each form.

Questions as headings

Write the material first, then each question as a heading below the card’s level (###, #### and so on):

## Lesen Teil 1

Sie lesen in einer Zeitung diesen Text. Wählen Sie die richtige Lösung.

> [!passage] Der TV-Koch Stefan Berger
> Bei Stefan Berger gibt es Gerichte, die man nicht in jedem Restaurant bekommt …

### Die Gäste im „Bremer Lokal" …
- [ ] finden immer einen Tisch.
- [x] sollen Plätze reservieren.
%%The article says to book a table in advance.%%

### Wie heißt das Restaurant?
Bremer Lokal

### Ergänze
Stefan Berger kocht ==jeden Abend== selbst.

What is under each question heading decides how it is asked:

Under the heading	Asked as
A checklist	Multiple choice, as any exam question
Text with ==highlights==	Fill in the blanks, one question per highlight
Other text	A typed answer, checked like any typed answer

• An exercise needs at least two question headings. One sub-heading under a card stays what it was before: not part of the card.
• A comment %%…%% under a question is the explanation for that question, shown with the results.
• Text after a --- at the very end is the exercise’s own note.
• If your profile parses several heading levels, a heading at any of those levels is always a card of its own; only the levels below a card and not parsed hold its questions.

Questions as paragraphs

For short exercises, under a single heading, write the material, then each question as text directly above its own checklist:

## Der TV-Koch Stefan Berger

Bei Stefan Berger gibt es Gerichte, die man nicht in jedem Restaurant bekommt …

Die Gäste im „Bremer Lokal" …
- [ ] finden immer einen Tisch.
- [x] sollen Plätze reservieren.

Stefan Berger möchte …
- [x] nur ein Restaurant haben.
- [ ] ein neues Restaurant eröffnen.

• Everything before the first question is the material. A question is the text directly above its checklist.
• This form takes checklists only, at least two. A heading with one checklist stays an ordinary question.
• A --- line between questions only separates them.

How exercises are asked

• In DecksMD and in Obsidian, an exercise appears on one screen: the material, then all its questions. On a wide screen the material sits beside the questions. In a web exam on the deck directory, each question shows the material beside it.
• Each question is scored separately and has its own button in the question bar. The buttons of one exercise are grouped.
• Exercises are always kept whole and in their written order. Shuffle questions shuffles whole exercises, never the questions inside one.
• The number of questions counts questions, not exercises. Because an exercise is never split, an exam can end up a few questions longer than the number you chose.
• In reviews and cram sessions an exercise is one card: answer its questions, show the answer to see them marked, then rate it once.

Text under a heading above your card level — a note’s # Title and its introduction — is never part of an exercise.

The passage callout

> [!passage] is an optional callout for reading texts. DecksMD and the Obsidian plugin show it as a quiet box with a book icon, and the app offers it in its callout menu. Exercises work without it; any Markdown can be the material.