The Token Highlight Question requires students to highlight certain words, sentences, or paragraphs by clicking on the text.

Figure 1: Token highlight Question example.

Create a Question

Enter the Question stem into the Compose question area. Below you will see the Template area with two tabs: Edit Template and Edit Tokens. Tokens are words, sentences or paragraphs of text that can be highlighted. To create a Question with tokens you should first enter the text and then create tokens inside it.

First, with the Edit Template tab open, enter the text into the Template area. Then switch to the Edit Tokens tab. You will see three buttons: Sentence, Paragraph and Word. These buttons will automatically create tokens for all sentences, paragraphs or words respectively. For example, when you click on the Word button the system will convert every word from the text into a highlightable token. The total amount of tokens created can be seen on the top right corner of the panel. You can always switch from one type of token creation to another by clicking on Clear. Previously created tokens will disappear and you can then apply another tokenization type.

You can also create custom tokens. For this click on Clear in order to remove any previous tokenization and start highlighting text parts with your mouse cursor. The highlighted elements will become custom tokens.

Figure 2: Configuring sentence tokens.

You can now configure validation for your Question. Follow these steps to set up score and correct response:

• Insert value in the Point(s) box to set up a mark for the Question. The default value is set to 1.
• In the Correct tabs you will see the text you have tokenized. Simply click on the token or tokens which represent the correct response in order to validate the Question. You will see the selected correct responses highlighted in yellow as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Validation.

More options

The following scoring types are available in Token Highlight Questions:

• Exact Match - Learner must answer all parts of the Question correct to receive a mark.
• Partial Match Per Response - Each correct response element will be awarded an individual score.
• Partial Match - Each correct response element will be scored individually and the overall Question score will be divided between responses.
• N.B. If scoring by either of our partial match options ensure a max selection is set as all tokens can be selected and a correct answer awarded.

Other Scoring options:

• Unscored/Practice usage type - Enabling this option will remove all scoring from the Question.
• Penalty point(s) - The value entered here indicates marks that will be deducted from the learner for an incorrect response.
• Check answer button - If this is enabled, a "Check answer button" will appear to the learner alongside the Question; clicking this button will indicate to the learner if their answer is correct or incorrect, but it will not tell them the correct response. This can be useful for informal assessment.
• Check answer attempts - The value entered here will indicate how many times the learner can use the "Check answer button". A value of 0 indicates an infinite number of times.
• Minimum points if attempted¹ - Points awarded to the learner for attempting the Question, regardless of a correct or incorrect response.

Max Selection - By putting a value into this field authors can specify how many elements students can select when giving an answer. For unlimited amount of selections insert 0.

'Extra' options

The extras section in the authoring interface allows you to add more information about the Question, information that we refer to as metadata.

There are a number of fields available: acknowledgements, contains math, distractor rationale, distractors, instructor stimulus, rubric reference, sample answer, and stimulus (review only).

To learn more about the options shown in the Extras section, see Understanding the Extras Section of the Question Editor.

1. Note: “Minimum points if attempted” replaces the earlier label “Minimum score if attempted”. Version added: v2026.1.LTS