Quest Ladder
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Quest Ladder / Graph sketch
Graph sketch questions
For when the understanding is a shape, and describing it in words would be a different question.
Some answers are a shape, not a sentence.
What it is
The learner draws on axes: a curve, a line, a set of plotted points. Key points to check in Extra settings runs 1 to 12 with a default of 3, and those points are the rubric you mark against.
It suits the questions where a graph is the answer — the shape of a relationship, where a function crosses an axis, what happens to a curve when a parameter changes — and where asking for the equation instead would be asking something else.
It comes to you
Graph sketch is marked by hand, in the marking queue, alongside long answer and proof. That is the honest position: a sketch that is roughly right in every way that matters can be numerically wrong at every pixel, and no automatic comparison handles that well.
Budget for it the same way you would for essays. A ladder that is mostly automatic with one graph sketch at the point where the shape matters is sustainable; thirty sketches a week is not.
Choosing the key points
The key points are what you will actually look for, and writing them well is what makes marking thirty sketches consistent at the end rather than drifting.
- Prefer features to coordinates: passes through the origin, turns once, approaches the axis without touching it.
- Include the one that separates understanding from copying — usually the behaviour at an extreme.
- Keep the number low. Three well-chosen features discriminate better than nine that are mostly the same feature restated.
Write the key points before you write the stem. If you cannot list three things you would look for, the question is probably asking for a picture rather than for thinking, and a different format will serve better.
When another format is better
Ask whether the sketch is the point. If you want to know that a learner can find where a curve crosses zero, numeric input asks that directly and marks itself. If you want to know they can recognise the right shape among plausible wrong ones, multiple choice with four sketched options does it automatically and produces better data about which wrong shape they chose.
Keep graph sketch for the case where producing the shape from nothing is the skill.