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Quest Ladder / Data tables
Data tables: look a value up instead of computing it
For the questions where the answer comes from a table rather than a formula.
Some values are looked up. Teach the looking up.
What it is for
Some subjects answer questions by reading a table: steam properties, standard enthalpies, statistical critical values, material constants. The skill being taught is often the reading itself — finding the row, interpolating between two of them, choosing the right column.
Data tables lets you paste such a table into the question type and have a generated question read a genuine value out of it, rather than approximating it with a formula that is wrong in the third decimal place.
Getting the table in
Paste CSV with a header row, or upload it. Then say which columns are keys — the values the lookup searches on — and the panel builds the lookup for you.
Paste the real table rather than a rounded copy. A learner working from the printed original and getting a different answer from the platform is the worst possible outcome here, and it comes from a well-meant simplification almost every time.
The lookup forms
| Form | When |
|---|---|
| One key, many columns | Saturation or property tables: one value in, several properties out. |
| One key, chosen column | Statistics tables where a choice picks the significance column. |
| Two keys | Bilinear lookup on ragged grids, such as superheated steam. |
| Categorical key | Exact match only, for when the key is a name rather than a number. |
The two-key bilinear form is the one worth knowing about: it interpolates in both directions across a grid that does not have to be rectangular, which is exactly the shape real engineering tables come in.
Showing the working
A lookup that produces a number and no explanation teaches a learner to trust the platform rather than to read the table. Turn trace on for the lookup and add a presentation step that emits the table, and the solution can show which rows were used and how the interpolation went.
That turns the question from what is the value into here is how the value was found, which is usually what you wanted to teach.
A lookup result is a computed fact like any other, so it can be referenced from the stem, the answer, a hint or a solution step with the same tokens, and the full expressions and facts machinery applies to it.