[LON-CAPA-users] Using symbols for "infinity" in responses

Justin Gray jgray at math.sfu.ca
Tue May 26 18:13:50 EDT 2020


Hi Rex,

I see that Purdue has a guide on Entering Math Expressions in LON-CAPA at
https://www.math.purdue.edu/academic/files/courses/2016summer/MA16010/EnteringMathExpressionsinLON-CAPA.pdf

While it is possible to author questions in LON-CAPA that accept this
syntax, I do not believe that this is strict Maxima syntax:

Infinity is written as inf
Negative infinity is written as minf (though I think -inf will still work)
The constant pi is written %pi
The exponential function is written as %e^(x) or exp(x)

ln(x) is written as log(x) - this is confusing to students but you could
write a mathresponse problem to redefine ln(x) to be log(x) in the answer
algorithm if you want.
ln(x) is otherwise interpreted as l*n*x which makes accepting equivalent
answers difficult.

Best,
Justin

--

*Justin Gray*
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On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 5:34 AM Rex Abert <abertr at tcc.fl.edu> wrote:

> I am developing some <formularesponse> questions for Calculus I limits
> at infinity.  Sometimes the answer is +infinity or -infinity, sometimes
> a constant (horizontal asymptote).  If I set the correct response as
> "inf" (lowercase), the previewer correctly interprets the symbol as
> expected.  A guide published by Purdue suggests that all caps should be
> used, "INF."  I had the answer in a question set as "-inf" and a student
> entered "-INF" and it was marked incorrect, as Maxima should, because
> uppercase and lowercase symbols are different to Maxima.
>
> I guess I am just looking for clarification on a standard way to do this
> in LC, given the behavior of the javascript previewer.
>
> --
> Rex Abert
> Professor of Mathematics
> Tallahassee Community College
>
>
>
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