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by F00Fbug 998 days ago
I remember working on a project to put scantron machines in every public school in DC back in the 80s. We built the interface from the scantron machine to the DECmate II (a micro-PDP-8, if I remember correctly); async io in assembler... I learned a lot on that part of the project. Then we wrote the scanning software to allow lots of teachers to scan their tests in at the end of the day. Next we built a network over dial-up phone lines to allow the DECmates to upload their daily scans to a VAX (using Kermit, I think). Finally we built the tools to load all of the daily scans into a database and do all kinds of analysis and reporting. All pre-internet -- good times!

I remember learning a lot about the scantron forms and realized that if you made a black box at a certain place, that form would be interpreted as the answer key and would screw up a whole pile of scanning!
2 comments
whimsicalism 998 days ago
Tracks with my extensive experience of scantron in the DC public school system.
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JumpCrisscross 998 days ago
> if you made a black box at a certain place, that form would be interpreted as the answer key and would screw up a whole pile of scanning

Out of curiosity, where?

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F00Fbug 998 days ago
In the left margin, about 2/3 of the way down... between a couple of alignment marks. But that was 35 years ago... I could be wrong. I always felt like I held an immense power with that knowledge, but never used it!!!
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Nilocshot 998 days ago
The scantron forms that were in use while I was in high school had a sort of meta-data section, where students would put their name, the date, etc. One of those boxes was labeled 'key'. I always assumed it performed that function, but I never tried it to see.

Maybe the intention was to make it easier for teachers to identify a student maliciousmy marking it?

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laverya 998 days ago
My recollection is that the "key" there allowed a teacher to give out multiple tests with questions in different orders, and then you would mark the letter for the test that you were given in that section. So test A would have questions in order 1 2 3 4 5, while B would be 2 5 4 3 1 and C would be 3 4 1 5 2. They could also change the letter of the answer, or really whatever you imagine.

Presumably it reduced people copying answers from their neighbors.

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