Hot Text

Creating a Hot Text Question

To create an interactive response question, begin by either creating a new test in Aware or navigating to an existing test. TEA suggests hot text for use in reading, language arts, and social studies assessments, but hot text is available for any assessment.  

Note: Assessments with interactive response questions may be printed as test booklets only, without answer documents available. This test is not scannable, nor will it have student IDs, class numbers, or any other information. Teachers must use the Enter Answers feature to manually input student responses for students taking a paper version of the assessment.

1. Select Interactive Item Types from the options. 

2. Select Hot Text from the available question types. 

3.  Construct the Hot Text question. Select the Continue button to move forward. For Hot Text questions using math equations, reference the Creating and Editing Equations section below. 

4. Use the interaction builder to highlight and enable hot text selection.

5. Select the correct response(s), then select Create. Selecting any of the blue checkmarks above the creation steps will return you to that step. The directions for each question are automatically updated to correspond with the settings selected on the right side of the panel, shown below. Note that the answers selected as correct will appear in a darker blue highlight. 

Unlimited answers may be allowed by entering 0 in the max choices box. 

Creating and Editing Equations

1. Enter your interactive test question text. 

2. Select the Add Placeholder Response button for each response desired, but leave each box empty. Select Continue.

3. On Add interactions to the question, edit each placeholder item to display the appropriate equation. 

Use the Add Math button to enter the desired equations. Under Text-to-speech Override, add optional alternate text that students with the Text-to-Speech support will hear when the math is read aloud. For example, the answer choice ½ could be read aloud as “one-half” instead of “half.”

Do not edit the text that appears after selecting Update. Use the question preview area on the left side of the screen to determine if the question is formatted correctly, not the encoded text on the right.

Note: As long as the equation looks correct on this third/final question preview screen, the equation will appear correctly to students. Equations occasionally appear incorrectly formatted on step 2 (construct your question). 

4. Select Create to complete the hot text question, or select Update if an existing question is being edited.

Student Experience

Students will see the hot text question during online testing. Selected answers will turn dark blue. 

Data Analysis

Question Type is available in Quick Views. You can access Quick Views through the navigation bar or through the Quick Views card. 

Once in Quick Views, search for the assessment using the search fields. Click on the assessments you want to analyze and apply the Student Individual Responses template from the drop-down menu. 

Interactive questions will be indicated in data analysis next to the scores for each of those questions. The examples below show questions with three interactions. Teachers may view the exact question in the Enter Answers screen and modify student answers if needed. 

Classic Aware

Question Type is available as a column for data views, located in the Responses folder.

This column will show the question type and in which question number the type is located.

Interactive questions will be indicated in data analysis next to the scores for each of those questions. The examples below show questions with three interactions. Teachers may view the exact question in the Enter Answers screen and modify student answers if needed. 

Note: For district and campus level tests, the Questions teachers can answer and score option must be set to All Questions for editing privileges.

Additional Information

Visit the Interactive Item Types FAQ for more information.