Copyright: Yaksha HELP,  (c) Uptec Computer Consultancy Ltd,   Tuesday, April 29, 2003 17:30:01


Contents

General Help:

Introduction

Installation & Removal

S/W User License

Contact Details

Feedback

Product Credits

Interaction Screens:

Name Entry

Subject/Topic/Type Selection

Preferences

Question Session

Session Performance

Record Book

Record Book Printing Utility

How to…

Print Questions

assign marks

change looks of the question-session

choose between speech or music

check confidence level

exclude an erroneous question

(c) 2003 UPTEC, all rights reserved.


Introduction

This is an Interactive application software, developed using the YAKSHA Application Engine for Windows Computers. It gives an interface to a large set of  objective type questions residing on a compact disc. The questions based on your selection are presented to you and when you submit the test-session you are presented with your performance evaluation. This evaluation can also be electronically recorded for future reference. You may also print a performance certificate for each attempt you made.

This application also introduces you the new way of building your objective test skills by using a special technique that tests your confidence and thus helps you to increase it. This can be experienced by selecting the Confidence Tester mode of testing. This is the default mode of testing in this versions of the package.

About The Yaksha Application Engine 2.n Family

(Database Can Be Related to Any Subject or Examination Area)

The version 2.n family is strong in terms of its paper setting algorithms and configuration is possible to support in any kind of Database from MCQs of 3 to 6 options, True/False questions, Single or multiple choice options, Match the Column and Fill in the Blanks questions in pseudo forms etc.

Many types of test modes are supported with this family and the modes supported in your release is fully dependent upon simulation requirements needed for a particular exam.


Running the "Yaksha" application from a Compact Disc is essential for a Regular Version User. Demo Version can be loaded on your system hard-disk.


INSTALLATION AND REMOVAL
Install / Un-install?

This is one of the easiest applications to get started on a computer. First thing you have to verify is the capability of your system to run this application. Read on the recommended system specifications and check it for yourself.

Recommended System Specifications:

•	Windows98/NT/ME/2000/XP operating system

•	Pentium III / IV,  64/128 MB RAM

•	Multi-Colour Display system with 16 Bit High Colour capability and 800x600 resolution.

•	Multimedia capability of WAV and MIDI play, with 16 Bit or better sound system.

•	32X or better CD-ROM Drive.

Specification Variation Notes:

•	In case multimedia capability is not available voice/sound effects of the application will automatically be switched off.

•	If the system is set to a resolution different from 800x600, the application can run, but it's visual appeal would be affected.

•	If the system is set to less than 16 Bit (high color) mode such as 256 color mode, some features of this application would be disabled. This includes the feature of displaying the background images along with questions. The application can not be run in 16 color mode.

•	It is a must that the system is set in small fonts display settings and none of the special accessibility features are enabled.

Installation

The application gets installed automatically after few seconds of your CD insertion into the drive. Although it performs lot of installation jobs, but all of those things are automatic and are generally successful on most windows system environments.

In certain systems where auto-insert notification is set off proceed for installation by putting

the CD into your drive and execute the file named YAKSHA.EXE in the root directory of the CD.

This application is primarily meant to run directly from the CD. The application CD is required to be present in the drive while the application is running. This is necessary as the database is very large and precious hard-disk space can not be used for keeping this huge database.

If the system doesn't contain a local hard-disk which is accessible to Yaksha for saving its configuration data, the application can still run with certain limitations, which are suitably informed to you with the help of warning messages.

Creating desktop shortcut

It is fairly easy to create a shortcut to run Yaksha from your windows desktop or start menu. Do the following simple steps.

•	Open the Root Directory of CD in Windows Explorer.

•	Locate the file named YAKSHA.EXE and hold it with the help of Left Mouse Button. Drag this file over the Start Menu or on the Desktop, where you want to create the shortcut.

•	This newly created shortcut icon can later be used for opening Yaksha Application.

Un-Installation

The application occupies a very small space on hard-disk (5-100 KB) in your windows directory (usually \windows or \winnt or \windowsXP directory). You can remove all traces of this application by running the UNINSTALL.EXE application available on the  CD. This application supports running of various versions on the same computer. Yaksha uninstall program also supports selection of a particular software version during the un-installation process.


Software User License
S/W User License

This software is owned by UPTEC COMPUTER CONSULTANCY LIMITED, henceforth referred as UPTEC. UPTEC grants to the user a nonexclusive license to use this  Software solely for user’s own personal or internal business purposes.  The usage of this software would require the presence of distribution media into the corresponding drive of the system and you should not make attempt to copy the entire distribution media contents to your permanent storage, such as Hard-disk etc. You should not copy the other distribution media to any removal storage, such as CD-ROM, MO disk or Floptical disk etc. For your convenience, the license is however granted to install same copy of this software on multiple computers and swap the distribution media among these computers, as and when required. This way the software introduces a new licensing system called "bookware", where the application is used exactly like a printed book, which can be read at a time only by one person but can be shared by multiple people at different instances.

The user may not commercially distribute, sublicense, resell, or otherwise transfer for any consideration, or reproduce for any such purposes, the software or any modification, any part or derivation thereof, either alone or in conjunction with any other product or program.  Further, the user may not modify, de-compile or disassemble the Software, other than the configurations or setups recommended by UPTEC.

You may not rent or lease the software. Additional license shall be required in order to use this software as an aid in public teaching facilities, schools, coaching etc. on chargeable time-share basis.

THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ASSOCIATED QUESTION DATABASE IS PROVIDED TO THE USER “AS IS.”  UPTEC MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THIS SOFTWARE AND/OR ASSOCIATED QUESTION DATABANK OR ANY OTHER MATERIALS PROVIDED TO THE USER, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR AGAINST INFRINGEMENT. UPTEC DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, OR THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS IN THE SOFTWARE OR ASSOCIATED QUESTION DATABASE WILL BE CORRECTED.  FURTHERMORE, UPTEC DOES NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR ASSOCIATED QUESTION DATABASE OR ANY DOCUMENTATION PROVIDED HEREWITH IN TERMS OF THEIR CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE.  NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY UPTEC OR A UPTEC AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY OR IN ANY WAY INCREASE THE SCOPE OF THIS WARRANTY.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY—UPTEC AND ITS LICENSORS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIMS OR DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING PROPERTY DAMAGE, PERSONAL INJURY, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INFRINGEMENT, LOSS OF PROFITS, OR INTERRUPTION OF BUSINESS, OR FOR ANY SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, HOWEVER CAUSED, WHETHER ARISING OUT OF BREACH OF WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE.


Contact Details

For any enquiries/feedback please contact.

UPTEC Computer Consultancy Limited

(Software Products Division)

UPTEC crossing, 16 Rana Pratap Marg

Lucknow-226001, INDIA

Fax     91-522-2209493

Email  yaksha@uptecnet.com

Web    http://www.yakshanet.com

            http://www.uptecnet.com


Feedback

Hi Folks! You are invited to send all possible types of feedback information about this Software. You can cut-paste this form into other Windows application or Email-Composers. Alternatively you can directly take a printout, fill it and send it to us. Feedback information, which significantly contributes towards improvement in this product, may be suitably rewarded.

 Feedback Form:

Nature of Feedback:

(Tick all that is applicable)

____Software Bug Report

____Question error/doubt Report

____Future product enquiry/suggestion

____Technical query

____Dealership enquiry

____Feedback on Sales Channel

____Any Other (Please Specify)

Feedback Description:

(Please remember to quote the product version number, if you are an existing user of Yaksha)

About you:  (Name/Age/Occupation/Address/Country/Phone/Fax/Email etc.)

(You may remain anonymous if you want so or provide as little details as you want.)

Would you like your name to be added in Feedback-Providers list?

Yes …….. No ………

Send to:

Contact Details


Product Credit
Product Credits

This software is a result of team work of many professionals in their respective areas. Following is a list of some people who have been direct contributors in development of this product. There are many others who have made substantial impact on its development, but do not find a place here due to logistics reasons only. We salute everyone. We encourage you to give constructive feedback and get yourself included in this list.

Project Director

Dr. Upendra Kumar

Project Leader

Er. Sunil Ji Garg

Software Professionals

Er. Kapil Maheshwari

Er. Sandeep Saxena

Er. Manish Chaudhary

Past Contributors on some code portions

Er. Navneet Purwar

Er. Dinesh Singh

Er. Amit Kumar Sharma

Er. Sameer Varshney

Content Contributors

Co-ordinators:

Mr. RN  Srivastava

Ms. Divya Misra

Physics:

Dr. Sarika Vivek

Dr. Bhanu Dixit

Ms. Divya Misra

Chemistry:

Dr. Nishi Saxena

Dr. Shipra Chaturvedi

Dr. Alok Gangwar

Mr. Akhilesh Srivastava

Mathematics:

Ms. Jayanti Tripathi

Mr. Peiyush Agrawal

Mr. Amit Tripathi

Mr. Raj Kumar Singh

Ms. Divya Misra

Zoology:

Mr. Rajendra Singh

Botany:

Dr. Alok Mishra

Management:

Prof. Vivek Singh

Dr. Dharmesh Srivastava

Dr. Rahul Mishra

Mr. Adhir Mishra

Ms. Richa Saxena

Civil Services:

Dr. Amrita Dass

Capt. PM Tripathi

Mr. Sameer Verma

Database Preparation

Mr. Kunwar Arun Srivastava

Ms. Gunjan Garewal

Ms. Shabana Azmi

Mr. Thomas Mathews

Mr. P. Mohanan

Past contributors

Mr. Vishal Diwan

Ms Neena Agarwal

Ms Veena Bhatt

Graphics

Mr. Ritesh Krishna Narain

Past contributors

Mrs Madhuri Menon

Mrs Shashi Bala

Mr. Harsh Puri

Voice

Ms Tuhina

Special Thanks to

Mr. Julian Smart (for Image Displaying Library)

Testing and Feedback

Er. R.K. Lele

Er. Sanjay Verma

Er. R.K.S. Rathour

Er. Manish Verma

Er. Himanshu Srivastava

Er. Shishir Rastogi

Mr. Ankur Bhargava

Er. Deepak Rai

Mr. Yujvendra Verma

Mr. Manjeet Pandey

Mr. Pritam Kumar

Ms Kanwaljit Kaur

Ms Jyoti Singhal

Ms Gayatri Dubey

Mr. Sudipto Joel Haldar

Ms.Deepika Khanna

Ms Richa

Mr. R.N. Srivastava

Ms. Divya Misra

Mr. Kunwar Arun Srivastava

Mr. Gaurav Rahi


ENTRY SCREEN
O FOLKS! JUST BE ADVENTUROUS BEFORE YOU START TAKING HELP ON THIS FIRST SCREEN ITSELF!

This first screen allows you to have a breath before you start with the actual application. If you are interested in reading things, before the actual hands on, press the 'contents' button on the top of this help window.

We still advice you to remain in natural self-learning and adventurous mode. Just keep obeying simple instructions on screen. In case you are stuck, there is this F1 help on most screens to let you understand more and clarify various usage techniques.

ACTION BUTTONS

About Yaksha

Close

Proceed

Note:

Entry screen can be converted to a typical splash screen later by selecting the appropriate choice in the 'Preferences' screen.


A button with this label on 'Entry screen' leads you to a screen, which gives you overall idea, of what this application is all about. The about screen also leads you to the names of people who are credited with this work.


A button with this label on 'Entry screen', closes the application..


A button with this label on 'Entry screen', moves you to the 'Name Entry' screen.


Name Entry
User Name Entry

General Help

Help on Action Buttons

General Help:

This screen prompts you to enter your name, that would later be used on your performance sheet or in the score record-book. You are allowed to enter upto 40 characters for your name.

ACTION BUTTONS

Continue

About

last scoRes

eXit


This button accepts the user name entry.


A button with this label displays this help from the contents screen onwards.


A button with this label displays the Record-Book screen which allows you to have a look at your previous scores that were saved by you in any earlier sessions.


A button with this label moves you back to the operating system. All system resources taken-up by the application are also freed-up.


Action buttons on various screens are easily identified by their peculiar animation.

Keyboard Shortcuts: In order to activate action buttons with the help of keyboard, you are simply required to press the alphabet in different colour in the button text or the alt+alphabet key. e.g. it is alphabet ‘f’ or alt+f for selecting the ‘Preferences’.


SUBJECT CHOICE SCREEN
Subject/Topic/Type Selection

General Help

Multiple Subject/Topic/Type selection

Help on Action Buttons

General Help:

This screen prompts you to select the Subject/Topic/Type(s) on which the questions shall be presented to you. There are following ways to accomplish this task.

1.	Move the selection border around the subject/topic/type name with the help of arrow keys and press space bar to select the desired one.

2.	Click on any subject/topic/type name to select it.

3.	Click on ‘Select All’ to select all Subjects/Topics/Types. You can use “a” or alt+a as keyboard shortcut for select all option.

The selection procedure works in toggle mode. Once you have selected one or more items, these can be unselected individually or by using the ‘unSelect All’ control on your screen. You can not continue beyond this screen, unless you have made a selection. Selected subject/topic/type is identified by a tick mark sign next to its name.

Multiple Subject/topic/type Selection

Select multiple Subject/topic/type(s)  together simply by selecting any row(s)  as explained before. When you select multiple subject/topic/type(s), you may be shown short names of your selected subject/topic/type on subsequent screens due to space crunch. You would be presented with questions from your current selection only into your question session.

ACTION BUTTONS

Go-back

Go Ahead


A button with this label on this screen moves you back to user name Screen. You can use ‘b’ or alt+b as keyboard shortcut for this key.


A button with this label on this screen allows you to move on to further quizzing screens. You can use ‘g’ or alt+g as keyboard shortcut for this key.


PREFERENCES SCREEN
Preferences

General Help

Help on Basic sub-screen

Help on Marks sub-screen

Help on View sub-screen

Help on Audio sub-screen

Help on Advanced Settings

Help on Action Buttons

General Help:

This screen allows you to make your preference settings. You can experiment by going to four available sub-screens of preferences, which allow you to set certain parameters. Clicking the floppy-shaped button on the left can make the sub-screen choice.

Basic

This screen allows you to set the very basic options like no. of questions, time and session mode for attempting the question session.

Session Options

These Preference settings are disabled if you are given the facility of selecting questions from the session option screen.

Number of Questions and Allowed time settings are available under this group. These settings provide a direct control of these variables for easy preset selections of the question answer session.

Default usage mode

This is a mode selection option which controls the usage mode that is displayed to you when yaksha is run. The modes specified in the selection list here are release specific and they control the way question answering is displayed during the session. The meanings of listed modes for you are listed below.

Examination:You are presented the multiple-choice questions and you select only 1 answer of your choice.  You are allowed to change your answer choice while you are in the question session. You may also leave a question un-attempted.

Confidence Tester:This session mode has been primarily designed to have a fair judgement of your performance along with successive improvement by online answer learning. Here you are allowed to do multiple selection attempts till you get the answer right.

The Performance display screen in the end of the session shows, how many correct answers you gave in successive attempts. Based on this a new statistical index, termed as Confidence Level is also calculated.

In this mode you should leave the question un-attempted, if you are not confident of its answer. This helps you to achieve a better confidence score. A good confidence score indicates that you will be less confused in examinations and will accurately tell the answer in your first go itself.

Marks

This sub-screen allows you to control the marking pattern, which would be applied to your question-paper. All questions carrying equal marks and the value of marks for each question is settable from 1 to 20.

Negative marking enable/disable is also allowed. Marks deduction of negative marking can also range between 1 to 20.

The above settings do allow you to set values, which may lead to overall negative performance scores, but ultimate percentage performance ratings are not calculated in negative figures. If the end result is a negative score, it is still depicted as Zero.

View

The preferences in selection area are related to session view parameters that are responsible for changing the view and feel of the quizzing session. The settings you make here are default settings of the view area. These settings are also changeable by right

Clicking on the Session view area.

Session Background

Here you can select the choice of graphical background in the question area. You can experiment with the given selections to match your taste. The best recommended set is however provided with “YakshaFavorites”  option. The backgrounds can be completely switched off by selecting NO BACKGROUND option and they can be randomly changed while in session by selecting RANDOMISED option. The randomised option gives you an automatic switchover of backgrounds out of all available in other options.

Yaksha does not display backgrounds if the system is set in 256 color mode. Suitable warning is issued to you at the time of application start itself.

Background Change Event

This option controls the Event at which the background behind the question shall change when you are attempting the questions. When you set it to “New Session” , yaksha loads a new background before each session and all along the session background remains the same. Setting “New Question” gives a vivid effect of changing it with the change of every question. The “New Question Subject/Topic/Type” option is relevant in case of multiple subject/topic/type selection, in which case it changes when a question of different subject/topic or question type comes after pressing the next or previous question button.

ToolBar

The toolbar preference allows you to set the default placement of the toolbar on top, left or right of the question view. Toolbar can also be set as a flying toolbar that by default positions itself to the left center of the view window. Large/small toolbar is also settable as per your wish.

Remember that even after you make this selection, toolbar is still draggable within the question area and can be conveniently placed.

Audio

Sound, music or speech related audio preferences are selected on this sub-screen.

The “Sound Enabled” checking option can Enable/Disable the entire sound system of this application. If you disable it, you will not hear any sounds on various screens and you will also not be able to set any sound options during the question view. If you enable this the sound files are played at various events and you will also have the facility of setting various sound options by right-clicking the questions session view.

Please note that systems that do not have the sound facility display a suitable message into this window.

Music/Speech

This preference is related to change in sounds that are played along with various events, for e.g. the sound played when you submit your work session. If you select music only then all event sounds are only musical tones and human voice messages are not given. If you select music & speech then musical tones are also accompanied by human voice messages.

Background Music

This preference is related to enabling/disabling of the orchestral music that is played while you are attempting the questions. Background music is selected as BACKGROUND MUSIC OFF for disabling it and any other option enables it. Yaksha also features the support for changing the background music. The background music are provided on Yaksha CD and you can select it as per your wish. The Last option in the selection is RANDOMISED, that allows you to play the complete list of music one after another by selecting them randomly. These music scores play in an indefinite loop while the question answer session is on. The background music scores are MIDI type files so that, it can be played along with other sound events in the session.

Felicitation Audio

This preference is related to felicitation voice/music played when you attempt a question wrong or right. You are allowed to select this theme as per your choice. You can also select RANDOMISED option to have different felicitations in different attempts. Please remember that felicitation audio is not played when you are working in Examination/Judgement mode of testing.

Advanced Settings

These settings shall be done by advanced users. They relate to randomisation control during questions-session-view and special settings to change the behaviour of operations during the questions answer sessions.

Randomisation option

The Random Logic Option allows you to change the logic of randomisation to match the requirement of a real exam. In some exams the questions are asked into groups of  subject/question types, while in others they are asked randomly from anywhere. You would notice that when the shuffling is disabled question of  subject/question type 1,  2 and   3 shall come in the given order, although randomised within a subject/question type framework. In other case questions shall be fully shuffled.

Disallow Previous Button

This feature allows you to set a special question attempt environment where the Previous button will be inactive. This allows you simulate some real life online exams that do not allow you to go to previous questions. Note that with this option the quick jumping facility from one question to another (usually displayed on bottom left of the screen) also becomes unavailable.

Disallow Answer Undo

Many real life answer sheet based exams are checked with OMR equipments. Sometimes it is a must where answer sheets have to marked with ball-point pens and answer changes are just not allowed. This optional feature of shall allow you to simulate this requirement in this electronic test version also. When this is done, the moment a user tries to select another choice in place of the one he attempted, a warning message is displayed.

Display Properties Advice

Yaksha product is best configured for 800x600 resolution and more that 16 bit (high Color) screen settings. If your machine is set differently, an information box is displayed to you at the time of starting yaksha. This information box is called “Display Properties Advice”. It is possible to control the display of this box as per your wish using this selection.

Allow Pause

This feature of Yaksha allows you to pause your question session as per your wish. When you tick this feature on, a menu item “Pause Session” is added to the right click selection of your questions-session view.

ACTION BUTTONS

Done

Cancel


After the preferences are set, you should come out with Done button. This ensures that the changes you have made are permanently saved. The changes made on the "Preferences screen" remain effective for all future runs of the applications even after power off.


Cancel button on 'Preferences' screen cancels all changes made in the current session on any of the four pages of preference settings.


STARTING OPTIONS
Session Options

General Help

Help on Time Allotment  field

Help on No. Of Questions field

Help on Topic Name/Total Questions field

Help on Action Buttons

General Help:

Session Option screen allows you the selection of the basic choices that would be used while attempting the questions. The scope of these choices is limited to the subject/question type you selected from the previous screen.

In order to understand each option you can point your mouse to a specific option and then right click to get a context-bubble help. This method of help will be available to you on many subsequent screens also, so keep exploring it for yourself.

On this screen you are also displayed the currently set mode of testing as confidence tester or examination. You can easily change this mode by going to preferences screen and making a selection from the basic choices.

Time Allottment

This selection allows you to choose the time available to you while attempting the questions. This way you can learn to improve your speed by successively trying to prepare question-sessions of same number of questions but varied time allotment. Using this option you can also customise your session as per the specific exams you are appearing in.

The top few items in this selection allow you to choose average time per question in terms of seconds/question. The choices at the bottom allow the selection of absolute session timings in terms of minutes. This allows easy duration selection with just one control. When average time per question is selected, only total time (no. of question X time in seconds/question) is checked, while individual questions can be attempted at any pace."

No. of Questions

This selection allows you to choose the number of questions you want to attempt during the question session. This way you can customise your session, equivalent to the examination you are appearing in. The selection also allows you to type in your no of questions directly  a value between 1 to 300 for number of questions or you can select from a predefined values in a drop-down list box.

If you want to attempt all questions available on selected subject/question type or sub-topic, choose All available/Maximum 300.  The number of available questions is shown in brackets against the Topic Name selection.

In a particular session you can attempt only a maximum of 300 questions, as a value more than that may become impractical. Even with this maximum limit the random presentation is done out of the All questions available on that topic.

Topic Name/Total Questions

This selection would be displayed as Topic Name field when you select only one Subject/Question type from the previous screen. In case you select multiple subject(s)/question type(s),  this option would be replaced by the figure indicating total questions available for that selection.

This selection allows you to work on a specific topic, within the subject/question type you selected from the previous screen. The value in brackets shows the total number of questions available for that topic.

If you want to choose questions, irrespective of topic, but on the subject/question type as a whole, choose All Topics. Value in brackets here is the total number of questions available in the database for currently selected subject/question type.

ACTION BUTTONS

Go-back

preFerences

Proceed


A button with this label on 'Session Options' screen moves you Back to subject/type Selection Screen.


A button with this label on 'Starting Options' screen allows you to select your preferences related to  Marks, Audio, View or application entry.


A button with this label on 'Starting Options' screen proceeds to taking the question answer session with your selections accepted.


QUESTIONS SESSION
Question Session

General Help

Help on Tool Buttons Bar

Help on Status Dialog Bar

Help on Right Mouse Click

Help on Timer Window

General Help:

This is your primary work environment where objective type questions are displayed one by one, and you are supposed to attempt them. To make your choice, move mouse pointer over the square shaped bullet marks, which are placed near the possible answers. Watch your mouse pointer turn into a hand symbol when it moves over the bullet marks. Click on one of these marks to choose the answer. When your answer is accepted, a circle is automatically drawn around the bullet mark of your selection.

In these types of online tests you should be least worried, whether the choice you are making is answer number 1 or number 2, 3 or 4. Still, for the sake of understanding, the hand symbol formation over the bullet marks also carries the choice number of the given answer.

Pressing keys 1,2,3 or 4 on your keyboard can also do the selection of answers. Please remember that the answers are placed from top to bottom and/or left to right order.

Please note that if all bullets or answers are not visible in the view page, you would see a scroll bar on the right side of the page that can be used to view the remaining portion of the page. Alternatively, you could also use <PageUp> and <PageDn> key on your keyboard to move up and down.

Other than the question area your basic interaction would be from the Tool buttons bar or a two line bar called Status Dialog bar at the bottom of the screen.

Tool Buttons Bar:

The tool buttons bar contains an array of  tool-buttons that performs most commonly used functions. It also supports the call-out help feature of displaying a small description box when mouse moves over buttons. The tool bar is a draggable window by itself. It can also be docked on three pre-determined positions: top of the question area, left side of view or right side of view. The toolbar may also be kept floating at any convenient position on the screen.

The tool bar button operations are as follows. The text in brackets shows the alternate keyboard shortcuts for each tool operation. A simple to remember tool button keyboard shortcut method is the usage of function keys that are defined in the call out help feature of the tool button.

The display of toolbar can be little different from the one shown above. This difference is based on the requirement of a particular tool-button in a specific mode. The most common tool buttons are explained below.

Restart new Session (F3 or CTRL+R)

Asks you if you want to abandon the current session and restart.

submit Work & see performance (F4 or CTRL+W)

When you have completed your question-answering task, press this button to submit your work for an evaluation of your performance.

move to Previous  question(Backspace or F5 or Left Arrow Key)

This tool button moves you to the question immediately preceding the current question. Remember, the question numbers which are shown to you on the title bar, are prepared for the current session only. This button is disabled when you are on the first question of the session. This button can also be disabled by setting the disallow back button feature in preferences window.

move to Next question(Spacebar or F6 or Right Arrow Key)

This tool button moves you to the question immediately following the current question. This button is disabled when you are on the last question of the session.

Undo attempt (F7 or CTRL+U)

This tool button is enabled after you attempt the question currently under view. The purpose is to clear your attempt and make the question as if it is un-attempted. This button is not displayed in the CONFIDENCE-TESTER mode. This button can be disabled by setting the disallow undo setting in the advanced preferences window.

Status Dialog Bar:

These are the bottom 2 lines of the application view window. This contains the information about various parameters set for the current working session and it allows interactivity of quick question selection and book-marking of the question.

The status dialog bar also supports the "context bubble help" with the press of right mouse button, as you must have already experienced on some previous screens of this application.

Quick-Jump (Combo Selection)

This is a navigation aid in the session-view. When you press the small button on the right side of this selection, a scrollable list of questions of the current session comes up. This allows you to quickly navigate to any question. Within this list the text <Answered> and/or <Marked> is also displayed. This further allows you to navigate to book-marked or unanswered question at any point in your work session. This control also allows you to go to incorrectly answered questions when you return back in the scrutiny session.

The book-marking status will have to be changed manually with the help of a check-box next to this selection.

You can also press 'J' or 'CTRL+J' key in order to reach this selection while working in the session.

BookMark (Checkbox)

This box is checked, in order to book-mark the question on display. Book-marking is a tool for you to keep the specific questions for review. The status whether a question is marked or not is immediately updated in the selection list on the left of this box. The total number of questions book-marked in a session is also calculated and put on the right side.

Typically you would keep attempting the questions one-by-one and keep marking the doubtful ones. You would then quick-jump to marked questions and try to review them one by one. You may manually remove book-marking, after being satisfied by the answer.

You can also press 'M' or 'CTRL+M' key in order to make this selection while working in the session.

Unanswered

This status information keeps track of number of questions, which you have not yet attempted. The numerator indicates the unanswered questions and the denominator indicates the total questions presented in this session.

Mode

This status information informs your current session-mode, such as Examination, Confidence tester. Also, when you come back to scrutiny, the same is also displayed here.

Order

This status information tells you the order (Random or Sequential) in which you are attempting the questions in the current session.  The sequential mode may not be available to you in confidence versions.

Neg. Marking

This is Negative Marking Status of the current session. The 'YES' indication tells that marks would be cut if you attempt a question incorrectly. The negative marking level is set before the session is started, from the Preferences Screen.

Marks

This information is usually hidden below the timer bar. You can drag the timer bar to other location to reveal this information. This representation tells you the marks, which would be given in the current session. For e.g. if the value shown here is +4 -1, the representation means, that 4 marks would be given if you attempt the question correctly and 1 marks would be deducted if you answer it incorrectly. The setting of above marks is done before the session is started, from the Preferences screen.

QID

The number against qid is the absolute identity of the question, which is currently on display. This identity can be used to refer the questions related problems back to the manufacturer.

Right Mouse Click

Right mouse click on the Question View area displays you a menu with follow selections

Help (F1)

Exit (F2)

Restart (F3)

Submit (F4)

Sound  [Submenu: Event Sound,Background,Felicitation,On (F8), off  (F8)]

Timer (F9)

View [Submenu: Background, Toolbar]

Pause Session/Resume Session

Calculator (Ctrl+C)

Print

Out of above options the Restart and Submit options perform exactly the same function as defined in the Tool bar. The other options are defined below with the optional keyboard shortcuts shown to you in brackets.

Help (F1 or CTRL+H)

Opens up a separate Help Window, which shows the topic of 'Session View' screen (This Topic). Pressing Contents button in the help window leads to other help topics.

eXit yaksha (F2 or CTRL+X)

Asks you if you want to close the application. This closure is similar to the close button on the first screen and the session you were currently working can not be recalled after this closure.

Sound  [Submenu: Event Sound,Background,Felicitation,On (F8), off  (F8)]

This option allows you select a plethora of multimedia effects.

The event sound menu allows for selection between “music only or music and speech selection”.  With this the speech messages and prompts are only left with instrumental music supports. Some people like this option while working in late night hours.

The background option allows you to select specific music of your choice or with RANDOMISED selection music may be randomly picked by the package and then played for you one by one. You may switch off background music indepently by selecting NONE here or you may totally switch off sound by on/off menu option or F8 shortcut key.

Time display on/off (F9 or CTRL+T)

This option toggles on/off the display of timer window, which is normally displayed on the bottom right edge of the status dialog bar. Timer window is independently draggable to any position on the screen. By switching off this window the absolute question Identity number qid  is also revealed. This number is useful if you want to give specific question related feedback.

View [Submenu: Background, Toolbar]

This menu option allows you to set the display options like background images and toolbar placement and size. These are same options that you could otherwise set from preferences-view sub-menu.

The background sub-menu further displays the background groups such as. Bridges,Waterviews, Landscapes, Mountains, Snow, Notebook, Plain, Houses, Architecture, Textures. When you select a group, your images are shown randomly within the specified set. When you select RANDOMISED as you choice, images from all groups are shown to you. You may also select NONE to stop displaying background images.

Pause Session/Resume Session

This option is displayed to you when you set the “allow pause” setting from the advanced preferences on the user Preferences screen. This option enables you to have a coffee-break and then you can resume the session as per your will. Please remember that during the pause session your session timing is extended to the paused time value. You can take as many pauses as you like, however the number of pauses are also reported on your performance screen (So that you can not fool others with your performance!)

Calculator  (Ctrl+C)

This option allows you to call the windows calculator program. You can continue using Yaksha application while keeping the calculator program loaded into another window.

Some Yaksha releases do not display this option, if it is felt that calculator may not be relevant for the given type of exam.

Print

This option displays two submenus as follows:

This question: Choosing this option opens a separate browser window with the current question being displayed there along with the answer. The print dialog also comes  automatically.

This session: Choosing this option also opens a separate browser window with the complete set of questions in the current session being displayed there along with the answer sheet on the last page. The print dialog also comes automatically. Please remember that each question of your session is printed on separate sheet. This would help you to manually solve the question in the blank space left on the sheet.

The question printing options of Yaksha works along with the  browser installed on your machine. For best results use Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher. The question printing option does not give answer sheet while you are in the examination mode of testing.

Timer Window

This box depicts the "time left" and "finish time" of the current session. The time value are shown in 24 Hr. format with HH:MM:SS representation. Time values are taken from the system clock and will only be correct if the system time is correct.

The time representation is also done by progressively displaying the hour clocks. Each Hour clock represents 1/10 th of the total session time.


SESSION PERFORMANCE SCREEN
Session Performance

General Help

Help on Performance Graph

Help on Symbol of ‘Balance’

Help on Marks Obtained

Help on Confidence Level

Help on Action Buttons

General Help:

This screen presents the scorecard of the performance you made in the session you just finished. The marks obtained by you are usually based upon the correct answers made by you, unless negative marking is enabled. The pattern, whether the marks were cut for wrong answers is shown by 'N' (Negative Marking Enabled) symbol on the left of the performance graph. The negative marking display can be obtained on the Examination/Judgement modes only. The Marking Pattern can be seen or modified in the Preferences Screen.

Performance Graph

Graphical view of your performance is depicted here in form of a bar chart. The colour used as the graph background depicts the performance zone. In order to assume grand success in competitive exams, You should keep trying the question papers, till you successively achieve at least Very-good or excellent level.

On the performance Graph, you also get an additional facility of clicking on the performance graph to get the topic wise details of performance as the case may be.

Symbol of ‘Balance’

On the left of performance graph you can see this symbol. It acquires two shapes: A Balance symbol which rests over letter 'N' or a plain balance symbol where letter 'N' is missing. The letter 'N' represents that negative marking was enabled in the previous questions-session. Below the symbol of balance you are also informed about the marking pattern according to which marks were given. For e.g. a value +4 -1 would indicate that for correct answer 4 marks have been given and for  incorrect answer 1 marks have been deducted. The relevance of negative marking is there in examination(Judgement) mode only.

Marks Obtained

The marks obtained by you are based upon the correct answers made by you. If negative marking was enabled in the previous session the marking pattern can be seen below the letter 'N' on the left of the performance graph. If your overall score is actually negative, the marks obtained will be shown as zero.

Confidence Level

This is a special number generated in the CONFIDENCE-TESTER mode to indicate your confidence in attempting a question. Questions that are attempted correctly in first choice increase this level, while those attempted correctly in second or third choice decrease this level in a suitable ratio. Questions left un-attempted do not affect this level. The confidence level is calculated only when you have attempted at least fifty- percent questions.

Having a good confidence level is important for exams where negative marking is applied.

ACTION BUTTONS

Print

record-Book

Scrutinise

Re-start


A button with this label on “Performance screen” moves you to record-book screen. The record book keeps a data of your previous performances and also allows your current performance score to be recorded. This helps you to make out, if you are really improving in successive attempts.


A button with this label on “Performance Screen” moves you back to the questions session, but in a special mode. Here your work is shown back to you, along with the correct answer marking for all questions, attempted or left out. In this mode you can not make any changes to the choices made earlier.


Re-start button on the “Performance screen" moves you back to begining screen on which you can redo with a set of new options or exit the application.


Print button on the “Performance screen" moves you to the print-preview page of current performance. Please remember that to preview a print sheet at least one printer should be installed onto your machine. If you come out of this preview, you will still remain with the printing utility, where you can select any of your previous records to preview and print.


RECORD BOOK SCREEN
Record Book

General Help

Help on Record Book Columns

Auto Add Score Feature

Help on Action Buttons

General Help:

The record book screen displays the record of your previous performances and upto 100 performances can be recorded in the list. The list is in the ascending order of date and finish time of the test sessions. The list shows all possible parameters it can record for any particular session attempt. You may have to scroll horizontally to see all such parameters, which are recorded. In order to select any record, you should click on the first column of that particular record. Deletion operations can only be performed when a specific record is selected. Addition is however made for the last record only.

Record book Columns:

Subject/Question Type(s)

Contains  the subject/question types you selected earlier for questions session.

% Marks

Contains the calculated percentage of marks rounded to 2 place of decimal.

Time taken

This field depicts the time taken by you in attempting a particular session out of the total time allotted to you. The time format is HH:MM:SS (timetaken) / HH:MM:SS (Total Time). For e.g. time of 1 hour 2 Minutes and 52 secs out of total time 2 hour 30 minutes will be depicted as 01:02:52/02:30:00 .

If you set allow pause to YES from the PREFERENCES screen and as a user you have used this facility during the session view you would be displayed the same value as HH:MM:SS with <n> pause(s) where n is the number of pauses taken by you.

Mode

Contains the information about the working mode you have attempted the given question session. The specific values are different for different releases of yaksha versions.

%Conf.

Contains the calculated confidence level in percentage, rounded to 2 places of decimal. The value of this field is filled in self-appraisal mode only.

Name

Contains User Name as typed in the initial “Name Entry” screen. This field may not contain any value if nothing has been specified at the time of Name Entry.

Total Ques.

Contains the number of total questions, which were presented to you during the question session.

Attempted

Contains the number of questions, which you actually attempted, during the session.

Correct

Contains the number of questions that were evaluated as correct out of the questions attempted by you. In CONFIDENCE-TESTER mode this value is the number of questions that were evaluated as correct against the first choice made by you.

Incorrect

Contains the number of questions that were evaluated as incorrect out of the questions attempted by you.

Marks

This field contains the actual marks obtained by you against the maximum possible marks. If negative marking is enabled the marks obtained are calculated accordingly. If the aggregate marks are a negative score, it is depicted as zero.

Marking

This field depicts the pattern of marking which was followed for the specific session. This pattern is shown as +m -n.  Here m represents the value of marks given when answer is correct and n represents the value of marks deducted when negative marking is enabled.

Only +m parameter may be shown when negative marking is not enabled. The marking pattern is adjusted from the preferences screen.

Order

This field records, whether the questions in the session were presented in,  random or sequential order. This value may always depict Random in Confidence Versions.

Sequence

This record field indicates the question number from which the sequence of questions was started. This number is relevant only when question selection order was chosen as sequential.

Date

Contains the date on which a particular session was attempted. The date format is <dd mmmYYYY> for e.g. like 31 MAR1999.

Time

Contains the time at which a particular session finished. The time format is HH:MM:SS in 24 hour mode. For e.g. 2.30 PM would be written as 14:30:00 .

Auto Add Score Feature

This option is useful if you always want to save your score as soon as your performance display is shown. When this is done, the manual method of performance addition remains disabled.

ACTION BUTTONS

Print Record

Add current performance

Delete record

Go-back


A button with this label on “Record Book Screen”, allows you to switch over to Yaksha Record Book Printing Utility. This utility is a separate product that supports certificate printing of one or more records of various versions of yaksha.


A button with this label on “Record Book Screen”, allows you to permanently save your current performance. The current performance is shown as the last line on the record book list. After adding the performance this button is disabled, which indicates that your current performance has already been added into the list.


A button with this label on “Record Book Screen” allows you to delete any record line from the list. Before deletion select the line by clicking mouse on first column of the list. A record once deleted can not be brought back, so be careful.


Go-Back button on “Record Book Screen" brings you back to the performance screen, from where you can re-start if you wish so.


Record Book Printing

General Help

Help on Record Book Columns

Help on Customisation

Help on Action Buttons

General Help:

The record book printing screen is an independent utility, that can be called from within yaksha application record book screen also. This utility allows to prepare certificate style printing of one or more record entries simultaneously. This utility is highly useful for individuals as well as service providers (Yaksha Centres) to provide printed certificates with full customisation for putting their centre name etc.

The columns you see on this list are derived from yaksha record book screen. Only relevant columns, that are useful for deciding criteria for selecting multiple record simultaneous print have been given. In order to select any record, you should click on the first column of that particular record. You can select multiple records by use of shift and control keys in the same manner as you use it for windows explorer.

When multiple records are selected for printing the utility might ask you whether you want to merge multiple sessions of the same user on the basis of roll no., name, test mode, date of testing being same. In this case data addition shall also be performed. A certificate can be based on mutiple sessions merged into one or a single session score can be obtained on a certificate. To print a multi-session certificate you are required to select multiple records with same Rollno., Name, Test date, Exam Mode and Marking pattern.

Record Book Printing Columns:

Roll No.

This column contains the roll number of the student as specified by him during name entry. Yaksha 1.2 version support roll number entry in a special way by separating roll number and name with a ‘#’ character in the name field itself. For e.g.   232#Amit Verma . The record book printing utility is capable of separating this roll no. and name and it displays it into different columns. This ensures compatibility with the previous released versions of Yaksha.

Name

Contains User Name as typed in the "Starting options" screen. This field may contain string anonymous if you don't specifically enter any name.

Test Date

Contains the date on which a particular session was attempted. The date format is <ddmmmYYYY> for e.g. like 10 NOV2001.

Test Time

Contains the time at which a particular session finished. The time format is HH:MM:SS in 24 hour mode. For e.g. 2.30 PM would be written as 14:30:00 .

Mode

Contains the information about the working mode you have attempted the given question session. The specific values are different for different releases of yaksha versions.

Remember that if you are merging records of multiple attempts by same individual they would be printed on the same sheet for same RollNumber, Name, Test date, Exam Mode and Marking pattern.

% Marks

Contains the calculated percentage of marks rounded to 2 place of decimal.

Subject/Question Type

Contains  <Question Type name>: All topics or the specific topic name on which the specific question session was performed.

Customisation

On the printed Performance printed certificate, you can customise many text and image information so that it looks like as if the certificate has been released from a specific centre. This has been particularly implemented for various enterpreneurs who run YAKSHA CENTRES for various students. Following information can be customised.

HeadImage path

This field shall contain the path of the windows bitmap image that would be used on the top of the performance certificate that is printed. If this information is not provided, Yaksha provides an head image from its own side. Experiment with this field, if you have thorough understanding of windows. A windows bitmap image of 649 pixel Width and 102 pixel Height usually fits well.

Sign Name

Here you can define the name you  generally put beneath your signatures. HINT: you may like to put bracket like ( ) around your name. If this value is not defined a string (sign & date) is printed on the report. The maximum length allowed here is 40 characters.

Designation

This information is printed beneath your name defined by the above value. If above value is not defined, the value against this is ignored. The maximum length allowed here is 40 characters.

Centre Name

Here you can define your Organisation or site name where the Yaksha Testing has been conducted. The maximum length allowed here is 60 characters.

Address

This field is meant for defining the test site address that is printed in the line next to ‘Centre Name’.  In this field itself, you may like to add information of City, PIN, Country etc. The maximum length allowed here is 60 characters.

Phone

This field is meant for entering the phone nos. at the test site. The string “Ph:”  is automatically added before printing this information. You may like to add Fax number etc. as a part of this information. The maximum length allowed here is 60 characters.

ACTION BUTTONS

Customise

Refresh

Select Test Type

Print


Customise Button allows you to open new form where you can fill in various entries that can be used to customise various information on the Report output.


Refresh Button allows you to refresh the data reading from the record book currently selected. This may be required if the utility is running independent of yaksha package.


Select Test Type allows you the support of this utility along with various releases of Yaksha packages. Fortunately this utility is backward compatible with Yaksha 1.0 and 1.1 software also.


Print Button moves you to a print preview screen, where you can view the certificate(s) on screen and then take printout as per your wish.


Yaksha allows you to take a print-out of current question or each question of  current session by right clicking on the question answer session. You are also provided with the detailed answer sheet. For details Click Here


This is done on the, Marks Sub-Screen of the 'Preferences' Screen.These settings allow you to set the marks allotment and negative marking level for every question in the forthcoming test sessions.


This is done on the, View Sub-Screen of the 'Preferences' Screen. These settings allow you to set preferences for toolbar and background for the test sessions. It is also possible to change screen looks during the question session, by clicking on right mouse button and by setting through view sub-menus.


This is done on the, Audio Sub-Screen of the 'Preferences' Screen. These settings allow you to select preferences, which relate to speech or music control on various dialog boxes and test session. Audio setting facilities have also been extended during the question session view, where right mouse button click leads you to various sound sub-menus.


The default testing mode of confidence CD is the Confidence-tester mode. The moment you proceed after filling your name and become ready to answer, you are in confidence tester mode. Your confidence testing is based on the assumption that a confident person shall mark the right choice in first attempt, a lesser confident person shall take 2 chances to do so and still lesser confidence for subsequent attempt chances. Averaging such attempt on the entire session shall result in display of confidence level on the 'Session Performance' Screen.

Remember, questions attempted correctly in the first chance increase this level and those marked correct in subsequent attempts reduces this level. So it is better to leave a question un-attempted, if you are not sure of its answer.


A specific number known as qid (Question Identifier) signifies the absolute identity of  questions in the database. This number is displayed on the bottom right corner of the question-session screen beneath the timer window. In order to see this number either switch off the timer window using the right mouse click option or drag it to a different position. The structure of qid  is explained below with the help of an example.

Say the number is qid=0105-234. Here,

•	First two digits  indicates that the question type number. ‘01’ here means first type on the question type selection screen.

•	Next two digits such as '05' here indicates the fifth topic in first type. The topic numbering is in the same order (Top to bottom) as displayed in topic selection drop list on 'Session Options' screen.

•	'234' is the question sequence number in that topic. This sequence number starts from 0.


Excluding an erroneous question

The permission of excluding erroneous or doubtful question from the database is reserved with UPTEC computer consultancy ltd for this release. You can however provide a great help by reporting such questions to us. For reporting such problems you may use the Feedback Form. Please remember that along with question problems, its Question Identification (qid) and exact version number and product name shall also be mentioned.

When we receive such exclusion request, we are likely to release special service packs, that would correct the database automatically. Anyway such corrections certainly are done in subsequent CD releases.