Question Authors' Forum

Thanks for submitting the exported questions. I now see the problem.

The default Python3 question type essentially runs a program consisting of the student answer followed by your test code. It does this in a loop for each test case, but let's disregard the loop aspect for now and just consider each test separately.

Your tests are just isolated lines like if varx > vary: so the program finishes with an incomplete if statement, causing the error you're seeing.

There are several ways you might go about asking your question.

1. Ask students to write a function, say compare_values(var_x, var_y), that compares two given values and prints carefully specified messages for the different cases.
   • This makes it easy to test students' code because you're providing them with both the names and the values of the variables to use.
   • This is our preferred approach, but it does mean you need to introduce functions very early in the course.
     • Students don't need to understand how function works at this stage - they just need to be shown the syntax.
2. Ask students to use the input() function to read two integer values from standard input and print appropriate messages.
   • That gets you into the annoying sidetrack of specifying the prompts for the input - a simple solution is not to use prompts at all.
   • If using prompts, consider use of the python3_w_input question type instead.
3. Ask the students to write a code snippet that tests the values of two values var_x and var_y that you provide in the test case and prints appropriate messages.
   • The test code is now two assignment statements to set the values of the two variables.
   • This requires a different template in which the test code precedes the student answer. For example, you might customise the question, turn off the is_combinator checkbox and set the template to just

     {{ TEST.testcode }}
     {{ STUDENT_ANSWER }}
                         

You can also write questions in which the template does clever things like finding the values the student has used in their code for the two variables, replacing them with values that you provide in the test code. But I suggest for a start that you stick to one of the above three ways.