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I need to design an online exam server for an exam like GRE in which question difficulty increases if you answer correctly and decreases if you answer wrong.

Questions are multiple choice questions

Difficulty scale of question is 1-10, 1 being the easiest and 10 being the hardest.

If two continuous questions are answered wrong, decrease the difficulty by 1 and if two questions answered right increase the difficulty by 1.

Test starts with a question of difficulty level of 4.

Question carries marks equal to its difficulty.

My question is: Which data structure should I use to store the questions? Which is the best algorithm to fetch the question by its difficulty, etc.?

I am currently considering a doubly linked-list:

struct node { int data; node *prev; node *next; int n int MAX; }; 

Here, 2 n's we need to store. One is MAX (actual size) and n is possible random size to pick questions from n - MAX we selected already for each double linked list you can add extra int data where you can store prev link, next link, pointer to array, int Maxdata(MAX size), int n(current size).

Each node is a pointer to an array of questions for each level. If the answer is correct, it moves next node and picks the random questions from that list, otherwise it moves to the previous node and picks a question.

For example, let's say an array has 10 questions 1 - 10. Since the array size is n = 10, you know that

  1. now you selected a random question rand() % 10 = 6 th questions
  2. now swap the question number 6 & 10, make n-- and return the 6th question
  3. now n = 9 so next time 10th will not be considered
  4. random will return 1 - 9 only

Is there any better way of doing it?

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  • I would use a SQL database. You're going to need a data store anyway, and a database will give you the querying capability you need. Looks like you're programming in C; consider SQLite. Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 17:07
  • Can you please provide a schema for the DB. Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 17:10
  • Please. This question was asked me in an interview. I gave this answer. I want to know the other solutions as well. Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 17:14
  • 1
    @user1162512 you may wish to read Why do interview questions make poor programmers.SE questions Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 17:49

1 Answer 1

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A database table for your questions might look like this:

QuestionID PK Question Text Difficulty Int 

Keep track of the questions already asked and answered in another table:

StudentID FK TestID FK QuestionID FK AnswerID FK (assumes multiple choice) 

Possible answers to questions (multiple choice):

AnswerID PK QuestionID FK Answer Text IsTheCorrectAnswer boolean 

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