Hot Spot

Creating a Hot Spot 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 Spot for use in math, science, and social studies assessments, but Hot Spot 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 Spot from the available question types. 

3. Enter the prompt for the question in the text box, then select Choose File to find your hot spot image. Select the Continue button to move forward. 

Note: The question builder optimizes size on upload but can be overridden. Use the Adjust button beneath the uploaded image to adjust to a specific size if required. 

4. Select either the rectangle or circle shape tool, then click and drag the shape over the area. Shapes can be moved around as needed once they have been drawn.

5. Draw shapes over the desired areas of the image and use the settings panel to determine which shapes are the correct answers, clone/delete hot spots, or include alt text. Limit answer choices for students if desired. 

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

Creating a Number Line

A number line may be created using the hot spot question type. Number lines may be created in PowerPoint or Slides and saved as images, or they may be found through many content resource providers. Upload the number line, then use the shape tool to create selectable areas on the image.

Student Experience

Students will see the hot spot question during online testing; the dotted lines indicate areas a student may select. The blue circle indicates the selected area(s).

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.