Count Responses With Syntax Errors As Incorrect Submissions for Assignments

When question part submission is allowed, you can choose whether or not to count responses containing syntax errors toward students' total submissions. You can configure this separately for numerical, symbolic, or algebraic questions.

When assignment or question submission is required, syntax errors are always counted as incorrect submissions.

Syntax errors can occur in responses to numerical, symbolic, and algebraic questions, and often include the following kinds of incorrect notation.

Question Mode	Problem	Incorrect Notation	Correct Notation
Any	Incorrect grouping operator.	4{x+3}	4(x+3)
Any	Missing operand.	50*	50*3
Any	Too many consecutive operators.	x++++2	x+2
Any	Unrecognized symbol.	$4.00 4&6	4.00 4+6
Numerical	Misspelled unit.	3456 met/sec	3456 m/s
Numerical	Response cannot contain variables.	2*x+3	2*10+3
Numerical	Response cannot use implicit multiplication.	3(14)	3*14
Symbolic or Algebraic	Comma in number.	5,000	5000

When your students submit responses containing these kinds of errors, a message is shown indicating either that the response contains a syntax error or cannot be evaluated. If you are using question part submission and do not count syntax errors as incorrect submissions, your students' used submissions is not increased for question parts with syntax errors.

By default, new assignments do not override the class settings for syntax errors.

Tip: To change this default behavior, create an assignment template that overrides the class settings and set it as your default template.

The default class settings do not count syntax errors as incorrect submissions when question part submission is used.

You can change these behaviors for your classes or for your assignments. Your assignment settings override your class settings.

If you change these settings after students have submitted responses, you may need to rescore your assignment. For more information about rescoring, see Rescore Assignments

To change syntax error behavior for an assignment:

Edit the assignment or assignment template settings.

To do this	Do this
Change the assignment template	In the Assignment Templates Manager, click Edit for the template.
Change the current assignment only	In the Assignment Editor, click Edit Settings. If the assignment used a template, the settings from the selected template become editable in the Assignment Editor and the template is no longer used.

To do this

Do this

Change the assignment template

In the Assignment Templates Manager, click Edit for the template.

Change the current assignment only

In the Assignment Editor, click Edit Settings.

If the assignment used a template, the settings from the selected template become editable in the Assignment Editor and the template is no longer used.

If needed, expand the Display & Syntax Errors settings.
Select Override class settings.
Under Syntax Errors, select or clear for numerical questions, for symbolic questions, or for algebraic questions.
These options apply only when question part submission is selected. When assignment or question submission is required, syntax errors are always counted as incorrect submissions.
Click Save to apply your changes.