Question Writer Tool Bar for MS Word

Many teachers want to provide students with practice in reading, thinking about, and answering test style questions. One problem, however, is formatting those questions in a way that is similar to the appearance of the test. Microsoft Word lacks an easy way to create verisimilitude in teacher written questions. The Question Writer Toolbar solves this problem. The toolbar features buttons that correspond to the various question formats used on standardized reading tests. Simply select the style of question you need, and Word inserts a formatted question. Type your question and answer choices into the gray fields, and you’re done.

Download
Set Up File … QWSETUP.EXE

Installation
Download the self-extracting installer to your computer (see above).
Double click the icon to run the setup program. Follow the instructions.
Open Microsoft Word. The toolbar should be visible just above the document ruler and ready for use (see Screen Cap below).
Visit the Help Page for details on the toolbar buttons and how to use them.

Screen Cap of Toolbar (click to enlarge):
qwt_01

TOOLBAR HELP

  1. Problems
  2. General Tips
  3. Numbering
  4. Regular Question Format
  5. Picture Question Format
  6. List Organizer Question Format
  7. Quoted Sentence Question Format
  8. Sequence Organizer Question Format
  9. Web Organizer Question Format
  10. Pin Button (Fixpoint)
  11. Question Mark Button (HELP)

Problems!

THE TOOLBAR INSERTS MY NEW QUESTION INSIDE OF MY OLD QUESTION

This is usually caused by having deleted the space after each question. That space contains a bookmark that tells the toolbar where to insert the next question.

Solution: Place your cursor after the last question and click the PIN button – pin. This inserts a new start point for your questions.

I TRIED TO USE ‘UNDO’ TO ERASE MY QUESTION, BUT NOTHING HAPPENED!

The UNDO command undoes a single action. When the toolbar inserts a question, however, it goes through a series of approximately 75 actions. Hitting UNDO once only takes a single step back.

Solution: Select the newly inserted question (mouse over the upper left corner of the table, then click the little box with four arrows that appears) and delete it. Now start your question over.

General Tips

  1. Be careful when selecting Odd or Even numbering (see below).
  2. Everything created when a toolbar button is clicked can be altered by the user. Resize table cells, move things around, change the font, make things bold or italic, etc. The toolbar’s role is to create the template for a question; everything else is up to you.
  3. It’s not a bad idea to click the PIN button before each question you insert. This will ensure that the toolbar knows exactly where you want the question inserted.

Numbering

Standardized tests use a numbering convention for answer choices that cannot be mimicked easily in Microsoft Word. Odd numbered questions have answer choices labeled A, B, C, D, while even numbered questions have answer choices labeled F, G, H, J.

To work around this, the toolbar requires that you manually select whether the question you are writing is an Odd Number or Even Number question. This decision, made when you select a question in the toolbar, determines how the answer choices will be numbered.

Regular Question Format

This question format is the most frequently used. Any question stem that simply provides a question and then gives four choices falls under the Regular category.

Toolbar Buttons:

Odd Number – use this for odd numbered questions on your test.

Even Number – use this for even numbered questions on your test.

Picture Question Format

This question format is typically used for phonics questions, although it will work for any other times you need to include an image in the question, as well. It provides a box for pasting in your image.

In all likelihood, you will need to resize your image or clip art to an appropriate size. You can do so right inside of word by clicking and dragging any corner of the image. The question format will self-adjust to the size of your image.

Toolbar Buttons:

Odd Number – use this for odd numbered questions on your test.

Even Number – use this for even numbered questions on your test.

List Organizer Question Format

This question format is used when you have information from a passage and want students to identify what information is missing. It provides a bordered box for the list, including a field for the list title. Adding multiple list items is as simple as hitting the enter key as many times as necessary.

Toolbar Buttons:

Odd Number – use this for odd numbered questions on your test.

Even Number – use this for even numbered questions on your test.

Quoted Sentence Question Format

This question format is used to quote a sentence from the passage. It provides a bordered box for providing the passage quote.

Toolbar Buttons:

Odd Number – use this for odd numbered questions on your test.

Even Number – use this for even numbered questions on your test.

Sequence Question Format

This question format is typically used for phonics questions, although it will work for any other times you need to include an image in the question, as well

Toolbar Buttons:

Odd Number – use this for odd numbered questions on your test.

Even Number – use this for even numbered questions on your test.

Insert New Event – use this to add a new event box to the organizer. Event boxes will always be placed after the first event box.

TIP: Consider deciding how many events will be in your sequence and create the event boxes before you start typing in the events.

Web Question Format

This question format provides a basic, four-element word web. You can type in each of the five circles to provide information for your question.

Toolbar Buttons:

Odd Number – use this for odd numbered questions on your test.

Even Number – use this for even numbered questions on your test.

Pin Button (Fixpoint)

This button inserts a bookmark on the page that tells the toolbar where to place the next question. Note that the toolbar automatically inserts this bookmark after every question, so the PIN button should only need to be used in the following circumstances:

  1. When you move the cursor down to create a new page. Use the PIN button at the top of the new page before inserting your next question.
  2. When inserting a new question causes weird things, such as a new question embedded inside of an old one, or a new question that overlaps a previous question.

Question Mark Button (HELP)

This button opens this very web page in your browser.

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