The exercises in this module are all variants of a number of basic exercise types. As far as possible, the different exercise types share many common features and you will interact with them in similar ways.

A single exercise page can contain a number of different exercise types.

On most exercise pages there is a help button for each exercise type that is used on that page. Clicking on this will open a window containing instructions for working with that specific exercise type.

The following points deal with the functionality that is common to most exercises.

The general form of an exercise

In essence, an exercise is based on a page of 'material'. This material can be the sort of material that is found on any web page: text, images, tables, animations etc.

Within this material there are places which require some kind of input from you. These places are called 'gaps' (though they always contain something, even if only a placeholder).

The way you input answers into these gaps depends on the exercise type: sometimes you have to type an answer in, sometimes choose from a range of options. The options may be specific to that gap, or held in a table of options for the exercise as a whole.

• In most exercises you can select and work on gaps in any order. However, some exercises may force you to do the gaps in the sequence in which they appear on the page.
• You can revisit gaps and change previous input at any time. However, you cannot change the input in gaps that have been evaluated as correct— but then, why would you want to do this?

You can select the gap with which you want to work using the mouse or the keyboard.

In most exercises you can evaluate your work on demand. This means that you can take as long as you like to work through the gaps on a page and then, when you are ready, click on the evaluate button on the control panel or trigger the evaluation from the keyboard.

• The gaps are colored to represent the results of the evaluation (see the 'Evaluation' page of this section for details).
• You can revisit gaps that are incorrect and have another attempt at getting them right.
• The total number of attempts you can make — that is, the number of evaluations you can carry out in your current session with the exercise — is set by the author of the exercise.
• If you run out of attempts and still have incorrect gaps on the page, those gaps will be given the correct answer.
• Study these corrections and try to understand why your answers were wrong and these answers are correct.

Using the mouse and using the keyboard

Nearly everything you can do with the mouse you can do with the keyboard and vice versa.

A list of the keyboard shortcuts that are available in a particular exercise type are shown in a table on the control panel. Where there are different exercise types on the same page the table will change to match the exercise type in which you are currently working.

The keyboard shortcuts have certain common features:

• Navigation between gaps: These keys (usually the arrow keys) enable you to move from gap to gap, in effect, selecting an active gap.
• Navigation between answer options: Where an exercise contains a table of options, these key combinations (usually the ctrl key plus the arrow keys) enable you to move from option to option, in effect, selecting an active option.
• Answer input: These keys (usually space or any character key) put the input into the active gap. This process may involve selecting an option for that gap or inserting the currently active option from the table into the currently active gap.
• Evaluation: These key combinations (usually the ctrl plus the return key) trigger an evaluation, the equivalent of clicking on the evaluate button on the control panel.

It is better not to use the tab key, which has special navigation functions in most browsers.

Getting help on an exercise

Several forms of help on the functionality of the excercise are available when you are working in an exercise:

• Exercise type help: For each exercise type on a page there will usually be a small help button at the beginning of that section. Clicking on this will open a window with a full description of the functionality of that exercise type.
• Tooltips: In addition, popup help is provided on most of the elements of an exercise in the form of small 'tooltips' that appear when the cursor is over an element.
• Input help: There may be buttons that display and hide information on some aspect of working with the exercise, such as the way the author expects you to enter or format certain types of answer.

There may also be help on the content of the exercise, that is, some information that will help you complete the exercise correctly. This takes the form of buttons that display and hide a brief hint on some aspect of the content of the exercise.