[LON-CAPA-users] Simplifying polynomial expressions

Fri Nov 9 12:39:11 EST 2012

I'm not sure what was wrong with that Maxima statement.  My experience with Maxima is very limited. I changed it to:
$equivalent = &cas('maxima',"is(trigsimp($submission=$answer))");

if($equivalent eq "true"){ return 'EXACT_ANS'; }
else{return 'INCORRECT';}

and it seems to be working, so I'm using it with other questions.
________________________________________
From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Stefan Bisitz [st.bisitz at ostfalia.de]
Sent: 09 November 2012 08:34
To: lon-capa-users at mail.lon-capa.org
Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Simplifying polynomial expressions

So, what's the solution? Looks to me like missing tolerance:
 > $equivalent = &cas('maxima', "is(trigsimp($submission-$answer)=0)");

Stefan Bisitz

Am 08.11.2012 05:52 schrieb Seema Ali:
> Sorry for the emails.  I figured it out.
>
>  From Seema.
> ________________________________________
> From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Seema Ali [sali at vsb.bc.ca]
> Sent: 07 November 2012 17:40
> To: Discussion list for LON-CAPA users
> Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Simplifying polynomial expressions
>
> I'm having problems trying to extract info from Maxima in the custom response.
>
> Assume:
> $submission = "3a + b - c";
> $answer = "3*a + b - 1.0*c";
>
> I have the following Perl lines:
> $equivalent = &cas('maxima', "is(trigsimp($submission-$answer)=0)");
> if($equivalent eq "true" ){ return 'EXACT_ANS'; }
>
> I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, it worked (under possibly different $submission and $answer values) in the Perl Script section, before my HTML/Text portion of the problem. I even tried entering the same text as $answer and it was still marked incorrect.
>
> Is there a better way to find out if 2 expressions are equivalent with Maxima and Perl?
>
> Thanks.
>
>  From Seema.
> ________________________________________
> From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Seema Ali [sali at vsb.bc.ca]
> Sent: 06 November 2012 14:47
> To: Discussion list for LON-CAPA users
> Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Simplifying polynomial expressions
>
> Hmmmm. I had a feeling this wasn't going to be easy.
>
> Maxima does like to simplify the expression right away.  So I might have to try Michael's suggestion.  How do I get the Lon Capa response into a Perl Script? I would still like to use Maxima to check for equivalent expressions.
>
> Thanks for all the feedback.
>
>  From Seema.
>
> ________________________________________
> From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Peter Riegler [p.riegler at ostfalia.de]
> Sent: 06 November 2012 09:19
> To: lon-capa-users at mail.lon-capa.org
> Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Simplifying polynomial expressions
>
> We usually do this kind of problems by parsing the expression with
> maxima's op command. The idea is, once you have a parsing tree, you can
> ask questions like these: Is there only one plus in the expression and
> is it the highest level operation? Is the depth of the parsing tree not
> larger than we want it to be?
>
> However, all this might not work for rather simple (i.e. purely
> algebraic) expressions like
> 3a + 2b - 4a + 6b
> as maxima might internally simplify that before parsing the expression.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Peter
>
>
> On 06.11.2012 13:10, Michael Dugdale wrote:
>> A thought (probably not a good one) -- couldn't you do a check of the
>> response string with perl to count the number of occurrences of the
>> variable?  Count that each variable appears no more than once before
>> sending it to maxima?
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my mobile phone, so please forgive any spehling errers.
>>
>> On 2012-11-05, at 23:12, "Seema Ali" <sali at vsb.bc.ca
>> <mailto:sali at vsb.bc.ca>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd like to create dynamic polynomial questions that require students
>>> to simplify them. I was wondering how to do I check to see if the
>>> students actually entered a simplified version of the expression, but
>>> keep it still free enough to allow the order of terms to be different.
>>>
>>> For example:
>>> 1. 3a + 2b - 4a + 6b
>>> Students could enter: -a + 8*b, or 8*b - a, or -1*a + 8*b, or 8*b +
>>> -a, etc for it to be correct.
>>> I'm concerned that a student could also enter equivalent unsimplified
>>> responses like:
>>> 3*a + 2*b - 4*a + 6*b or -a + 2b + 6b and still have it marked correctly.
>>>
>>> I'd like to create a variety of short answer polynomial questions, but
>>> I'm not sure how much work it will be.
>>>
>>> The code below contains an example with a,b,c variables. It creates
>>> polynomials and it marks it correct if the answer entered is
>>> equivalent to the question, not necessarily the simplified form.
>>>
>>> Any insight on this will be appreciated.
>>>
>>> <problem>
>>> <script type="loncapa/perl">$coeff_a1 = &random(-1,1,2)*&random(2,10,1);
>>> $coeff_a2 = &random(-1,1,2)*&random(2,10,1);
>>> $coeff_b1 = &random(-1,1,2)*&random(2,10,1);
>>> $coeff_b2 = &random(-1,1,2)*&random(2,10,1);
>>> $coeff_c1 = &random(-1,1,2)*&random(2,10,1);
>>> $coeff_c2 = &random(-1,1,2)*&random(2,10,1);
>>>
>>> $answer = &cas('maxima', "$coeff_a1*a + $coeff_b1*b + $coeff_c1*c +
>>> $coeff_a2*a + $coeff_b2*b + $coeff_c2*c");
>>>
>>> $answershow = &xmlparse($answer);</script><startouttext />Simplify.
>>> <m eval='on'>
>>> \[\Large
>>>     $coeff_a1 a + $coeff_b1 b + $coeff_c1 c + $coeff_a2 a + $coeff_b2 b
>>> + $coeff_c2 c
>>> \]
>>> </m>
>>>
>>> $answershow
>>> <br />
>>> Answer:<endouttext />
>>> <mathresponse cas="maxima" answerdisplay="$answer" args="$answer">
>>>      <answer>f(x) := RESPONSE[1];
>>> g(x) := LONCAPALIST[1];
>>> is(trigsimp(f(x)-g(x))=0);</answer>
>>>      <textline readonly="no" />
>>>      <hintgroup showoncorrect="no">
>>>          <startouttext />
>>>
>>>          <endouttext />
>>>      </hintgroup>
>>> </mathresponse>
>>> </problem>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>> <ATT00001..c>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
>> LON-CAPA-users at mail.lon-capa.org
>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
>>
>
> --
> Peter Riegler
> Ostfalia Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften
> Hochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenbüttel
> Salzdahlumer Str. 46/48
> 38302 Wolfenbüttel
>
> Fakultät Informatik
> Fon: ++49 5331 939 31540
> http://public.rz.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/~riegler
>
> Zentrum für erfolgreiches Lehren und Lernen
> Fon: ++49 5331 939 17200
> http://www.ostfalia.de/zell
>
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
> LON-CAPA-users at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
> LON-CAPA-users at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
> LON-CAPA-users at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
> LON-CAPA-users at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
>
_______________________________________________
LON-CAPA-users mailing list
LON-CAPA-users at mail.lon-capa.org
http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users