What is the Etest DTD?

The Etest DTD is an SGML (and XML) Document Type Definition for creating academic exams and quizzes. 'Etest' stands for 'English test,' because the DTD was originally designed for use in an EFL setting. It should be useful, however, for many types of tests in other disciplines.

It supports most common types of test problems, including multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blanks, matching, ranking, and open-ended questions. Figures, simple tables, passages of dialogue, and block quotes may be included. Also, the source document may include information, such as answer guidelines, intended only for the instructor's use. With an appropriate stylesheet, you should be able to produce students' and teacher's versions of a test from a single source document.

If you are thinking of creating documents using Etest, you should be aware that, like any DTD, it does not actually do anything; it merely provides a structural framework for documents. In order to produce any useful output, you will need an SGML processor such as Jade (see http://jclark.com/) and one or more stylesheets. In other words, at this stage it will take a fair amount of work on your part, and perhaps learning some new skills, in order to get any useful result.

I have included a DSSSL stylesheet (etest.dsl) with this DTD, but it should be regarded as an example only. It was designed to meet the needs of one particular project, and it implements only part of the features of the DTD.

Download

UNIX/Linux: etest.tar.gz [9 kb]

DOS/Windows: etest.zip [11 kb]