Answer Key Entry

Updated: August 2023 

Context: This step is not required in order for a packet to published. Organizations should decide whether the Answer Key will be entered for tickets and full packets.

Look up Answer Key

• From the main packet entry screen for a packet, look at the “Answer Key” panel and select “edit”

• Select "import" at the top of the next screen. A window will pop up.
• Enter the Illuminate Assessment ID and click "Look Up" (Note: The assessment has to be entered into Illuminate prior to this step. It is our strong recommendation to enter the assessment in all regions before this step, so you can use the look-up process as a check for cross-regional alignment.)

• Paper will return a report of all the instances of an assessment with that title across regions.
  • On the left side, you'll see the number of matching assessments.
    • A dark gray puzzle piece indicates that the question labels, correct answers, standards, and point values match on all versions of the assessment.

• • • A red puzzle piece indicates that the assessments do not match (you will also see on the right side of the screen how many issues were found). If this occurs, scroll down the page to find the items that do not match. Hover over the question number to see which aspect of the question does not match (in the example below, the NY assessment and NJ/MA assessments have a different standard marked for the same question).

• • Issues must be resolved in Illuminate. Then, come re-import the answer key.
  • Note: Ponder Paper can't detect which version of the test is "correct." In the above example, it might be that NJ/MA are correct and NY needs to be updated.
  • If desired, compare the information on this screen with the assessment's answer key/test info page for an additional check of accuracy.
• Click "Import." When the window closes and you see the answer key loaded on the screen, click "Next."

Attaching Questions to Passages and Pages

• If the assessment has passages (most common for English and History exams), enter the passage titles on the next screen and select the questions that are associated with that passage. Click "Add" once you've selected all the questions for the first passage, then repeat for each subsequent passage. (Passages that have been added will appear in the column on the right).
  • If a question refers to multiple passages, you can select the same question for all of the necessary passages.
  • After adding all passages and linking questions to the correct passages, click "next."

• On the next screen, select the content that appears on each page of the assessment packet to "tag" that content to that page. For example, the page shown below includes part of a passage and four multiple choice questions, all of which are selected in the window on the left (as shown in the yellow highlighting).
  • If passages or questions span multiple pages, tag them on each page where they appear.
  • If you entered a "Paired Passage" passage title on the last screen, tag this assessment title on all pages where either passage appears (i.e., you may be "double" tagging a page with the name of the passage, plus the "paired passage" title).
  • Once you have scrolled through the entire packet and tagged all passages and questions to at least one page, click the red "submit" button at the top of the page to save your work.
    • Every passage and question must have a checkmark (i.e. must be added to at least one page) before the page will allow you to submit.