For Numerical Simulation and Symbolic Math only.

When defining response outcomes for Numerical Simulation and Symbolic Math question types in Inspera Assessment, you can specify tolerance levels for numerical answers. This feature allows authors to create comprehensive questions while ensuring candidates are not penalized for small deviations that still demonstrate their understanding. 

This article explains Absolute tolerance and Relative tolerance, including their definitions and practical examples.

Understanding tolerance levels

Tolerance levels allow you to set an acceptable range around a correct numerical answer, rather than requiring an exact match. This is particularly useful in subjects like mathematics or science where slight variations in calculation results might occur but should not lead to an incorrect mark. 

To maintain compatibility with the QTI (Question and Test Interoperability) standard for storing content and enabling the use of these questions in other systems, Inspera Assessment utilizes the formulas defined by that standard for evaluating tolerance levels.

Absolute tolerance

Absolute tolerance is used when you want to define a response outcome that falls within a fixed numerical lower and upper bound of a variable. For a candidate response to meet the response outcome, it should be within the range of variable minus lower bound, variable plus upper bound, where lower and upper bounds are numbers.