H5P Guides

Advanced Fill in the Blanks

Advanced Fill in the Blanks is a question type that allows creating fill in the blanks tasks with advanced feedback.  The main difference between "Fill in the blanks" and "Advanced fill in the blanks" is that in the second, you can provide feedback for a specific incorrect answer and you can also offer answers for users to choose from a dropdown.

In this tutorial, you will learn:

  • When to use Advanced Fill in the Blanks content type
  • How to create an Advanced Fill in the Blanks activity
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Example

Here's the task we'll create in this tutorial:

Step 1: Topic

We are going to make an exercise where students should put the verbs into the correct tense. We'll offer individual feedback for most common mistakes so users can reflect and learn why each particular answer is not a suitable fit for each sentence.

Step 2: Creating Advanced Fill in the Blanks

Select the New content option and choose Advanced Fill in the Blanks from the list of Content types: 

Advanced fill in the blanks inside H5P content Hub

Step 3: Advanced Fill in the Blanks editor

The Fill in the Blanks editor should now appear. The editor looks like this:

Step 4: Task Description

The Task description will be displayed to the learner and it should contain a question or instructions on how to solve a task. Type the following text in the Task description field:

Put the verbs into the correct tense. You'll get individual feedback for typical mistakes.

Step 5: Text with Blanks

Under Text with Blanks we will type the exercise like this:

He speaks English but he (not / speak) ___________ German.

Important: Make sure you use three or more underscores ("_") to specify the position where you want the blank to appear.

Now we should define all possible alternatives and also point out which one is correct. This is done in the "Blanks used in the text" section.

For alternative correct/incorrect answers type in "/" to separate alternatives.


For the first blank, we'll add the below as a correct answer: 

  • Correct answer: doesn't speak/does not speak

And below as a set of incorrect answers and feedback if one of them is chosen:

  • Incorrect answer: speaks not/speak not
  • Feedback: Remember to use 'do/does' when negating a full verb (speak).

To add more incorrect answers use the "Add incorrect answer" button shown below:



We'll add one more set of incorrect answers:

  • Incorrect answer: don't speak/do not speak
  • Feedback: You forgot the 'third-person singular -s' for a simple present (he).

Extra options

You can also define which part of the text will highlight when the feedback is shown. This is done by putting the word between ("!!"). For example:

!!He!! speaks English but he (not / speak) ___________ German.

Putting the word "He" between !! means that this word will highlight when we display the feedback for the first set of incorrect answers. 

"Highlight position relative to blank," tells which word under "!!" will be used for this set of incorrect answers, since you can define multiple highlights.

For the second set of incorrect answers, we'll highlight the word "speak" so this word will highlight in the text on an incorrect answer.

You should get something like this:

Advanced fill in the blanks one quesition filled in

Step 6: Adding more exercises

We'll add three more lines using the same methods as above:

I (learn) ___________ English for three years now.

  • Correct: 've been learning/have been learning

1st set of incorrect answers:

  • Incorrect: 'm learning/am learning
  • Feedback: Present progressive (am learning) is used for something that is going on right now. @present_perf_prog

2nd set of incorrect answers:

  • Incorrect: learned/learnt
  • Feedback: Simple past (learned/learnt) is used if something is over and you just report it. @present_perf_prog

3rd set of incorrect answers:

  • Incorrect: 've/learned/'ve learnt/have learned/have learnt
  • Feedback: You're nearly there. It's great that you've used present perfect because the action (learning) connects past and present. But it's still going on and you talk about how long it has been going on: use present perfect progressive in such a case. (have/has been + ...ing)

I (not / be) ___________ to Sweden so far.

  • Correct: haven't been/have not been

1st set of incorrect answers:

  • Incorrect: hasn't been/has not been
  • Feedback: Remember to use 'have' for I, you, we, and they.

2nd set of incorrect answers:

  • Incorrect: wasn't/was not/weren't/were not
  • Feedback: If you want to say that you've (never) done something at some point in your life, you need present perfect. (have/has + past participle) You've used a simple past, which is for reporting about a specific event, typically including an exact time or date.

 

She (paint) ___________ the walls of her house now.

  • Correct: 's painting/is painting

  • Incorrect: paints/paint
  • Feedback: It's right now, so you must use present progressive (am/is/are + ...ing).

 

Overall feedback

In the Overall Feedback widget, you can define feedback that will be presented to the user at the end of the exercise, based on a total score.  We'll define overall feedback like this:

  • 0-50%: Try again!
  • 51%-75%: You've done ok!
  • 76%-100%: Good job!

By now you should have ended up with something like this:

Filled in Advanced fill in the blanks

Step 7: Behaviour settings

  • Under "Answer mode" select: Users select from options
  • Under "Alternatives offered" for selection select: The incorrect answers entered for the blank
  • Check "Automatically check answers after input"

Step 8: Finishing up

Save the node/article when you're satisfied to view your final Advanced Fill in the Blanks.
You should now have the same result as the example at the top of this page.  
Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions on how to improve this tutorial.