Ramesh's Test Maker

Coaching teachers turn their notes into a test that students take on a phone and see their score before they stand up.

Who this is for

Ramesh Mundhada runs a stationery and school-supplies shop in Akola, opposite a lane with three coaching classes. He sells bond paper, answer sheets and about four hundred pages of photocopying a day. His son has joined the shop and Ramesh wants something to sell the teachers every month, not just paper. The moment is Friday evening, when Sir from the science class walks in with a handwritten test paper and asks for forty copies by eight.

How the job is done today

The teacher writes ten questions in a ruled notebook on Thursday night. Friday evening the page comes to Ramesh's shop, he photocopies forty sets at one rupee a page, and the boy staples them. Saturday the students write on the sheets. The teacher carries the bundle home, corrects till late on Sunday, and on Monday reads out marks in class, or types them into the batch WhatsApp group as a long message that nobody can find by Wednesday. The wrong answers are never counted, so the teacher is only guessing which chapter to repeat.

The screens, in order

1. Shop counter list — Shows Ramesh's son every coaching class the shop has signed up, who has paid till which month, and who has not made a test in three weeks.
2. Add a coaching class — Lets the new boy at the counter set up a whole customer in five minutes, with the four steps written on the screen itself because there is nobody standing behind him.
3. Make a test — Lets a teacher type or paste questions from their own notes, tick the right option, and set the marks and the time limit.
4. Share the test — Gives the teacher one short link to paste into the batch WhatsApp group, with the test name and timing shown exactly as students will see it.
5. Student test page — Opens on any phone, asks only for the student's name and roll number, shows one question at a time, and gives the score the moment the last answer is submitted.
6. Results — Shows the teacher who scored what, and which question the batch got wrong most often, so the next class starts at the right place.

What it keeps track of

• Coaching classes — name of the class, owner's name and phone, which subjects, how much a month, paid till which month, who at the shop signed them up
• Teachers — name, phone, which coaching class, which subject, whether they can still sign in
• Tests — which teacher made it, subject and chapter, the questions with their options, which option is right, marks each, how many minutes, the link, live or closed
• Attempts — student name and roll number, which test, what they answered for each question, total score, when they finished

The one decision that matters

Do students get accounts, or not. One way, every student signs up with a phone number and a password and the shop has a proper student list. The other way, there is no sign-up at all: the student opens the link, types name and roll number, and starts. Go with no accounts. The whole thing is being run by a boy at a stationery counter who was hired last month and has nobody to ask. Passwords mean forgotten passwords, and forty fourteen-year-olds ringing the shop on a Saturday morning. The roll number the teacher already uses in the register is enough to match the marks to a face.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out reading a PDF of notes and making questions by itself, and leave out long-answer questions. Only multiple choice and one-word answers that are matched exactly. A question the software invented wrongly goes in front of forty students with the teacher's name on it, and that teacher stops paying the shop. Let the teacher type ten questions in ten minutes and trust every one of them.

How you would know it worked

A month after the counter boy signs up a new class, that teacher makes a test at nine on a Sunday night and thirty-eight students take it, and nobody from that class has rung the shop to ask how it works. The next month's payment comes without Ramesh reminding them.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I have a stationery shop in Akola and three coaching classes are on my lane. I want a website I can sell to them for a monthly fee so their teachers can make tests themselves instead of sending question papers to me for photocopying. A teacher should sign in, type questions with four options each and tick the right one, set the marks and the time, and get a link to paste in their WhatsApp group. A student opens the link on a phone, types name and roll number, answers one question at a time, and sees the score the moment they finish. The teacher should see everyone's marks and which question most students got wrong. I also need a plain counter page where my new boy can add a coaching class, add its teachers, and mark till which month they have paid, with the steps written on the screen because there is nobody here to teach him.