• Start the program by double-clicking the "NZARTX07" icon.
• Click "Produce Paper" to start exam generation.
• Wait for the "Examination Paper Complete" message in the "Progress box".
• Click "View/print paper" to see and print the examination as described below.

You can show this help file using either the "Help" button in the program window, or by loading the file "Help.htm" in the program folder into your web browser. If you show it using the "Help" button, you can keep it open while you examine the paper, opened simultaneously in your standard browser. But you can print it only from the web browser.

Click on the links below to read more about each topic.

Setting up the Browser
Producing an Examination. Detailed instructions
Administering an Examination. Detailed instructions
Marking an Examination. Detailed instructions
Processing the official results.
Security Features.
The CRC check
List of version updates
About the Program and System Requirements
Copyright notice

Introduction

This software is designed to produce papers with Internet Explorer Version 6.0 or later. It is not guaranteed to format papers properly with other browsers, though it may do so.

You may occasionally encounter problems with formatting or printing particular papers, since it is impossible to check all combinations of questions before release. If so, just discard the problem paper and generate another one. Report the problem to Gary, at

morseman@nzart.co.nz

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Setting up the Browser.

This examination software was designed to produce papers which will format and print correctly using the browser Internet Explorer version 6.0 or later. If you don't have this, it can be downloaded free from

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/ie6/default.asp

However, it is big. If a friend has downloaded it and written it onto a CD disk, get it from that.

Why this browser? There are differences in the way browsers format and print pages. If you have another, it will probably serve. You'll have to experiment to find out. Mozilla Firefox also works fine, and I recommend this as an excellent default browser. Find it by Googling on "Firefox". Download is free, and it's much smaller than Explorer.

Both Internet Explorer from version 6 on, and Firefox, have a print preview option which shows you exactly what you'll see on the printed page, allowing you to check formatting. Both will probably work fine in their default configurations, except that to print examination papers with reasonable size text you will probabably have to select "medium" font size. If in doubt Set Internet Explorer up like this:

• On the top tool-bar, select "View/Text size". Select "Medium", if it is not your default. You may have to do this each time you use the browser for examination production. Reason: The other sizes print too small or too big, and may be either hard to read, or overflow pages. Other browsers and/or printer combinations may require different settings.

Select "File/Page setup" on the top toolbar. A window will appear with page options.

• "Paper size" should be set to "A4".
• "Orientation" should be set to "Portrait".
• If the page overflows, or figures appear in strange places try setting all "margins" to 20 mm or 0.75 inches if they're not set thus already - your browser may use either set of units.
• The "Header" and "Footer" strings determine what is printed at the top and bottom of the printed sheets. You can leave these at their default values, since they will be set up for working on the Internet.

Any other browser is suitable if if it prints the examination pages correctly. Some do not have a "Print Preview" option, so you'll have to print samples to check. You can't predict what will print, or how it will be formatted, from what you see on the normal "html" screen!

If you want to check whether your system will run this program and Internet Explorer 6, see the section System Requirements. (This will be almost certainly unnecessary, since all modern systems now have adequate speed, memory etc.)
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Producing an Examination: Detailed instructions.

Start the program. Click the "Produce Paper" button.

Comments will appear in the "Progress Box". The program first runs a CRC check on all question files to assure that they haven't been altered, and 31 "File OK" messages will appear sequentially. If all pass the check, paper generation starts. (If any paper fails the check, the program halts with an error message. If this happens, exit the program and install it again. Hopefully, the bad file will be extracted correctly this time).

Finally, the "Security Code" of the paper produced will appear. This will be printed on each page of the examination and mark sheets.

The final messages showing in the "Progress Box" will be

"Examination Paper Complete"
"Now click button "View/print paper."

Do it. Your browser will start, and load the master menu page for further operations.

Because of the limitations of HTML documents, each page of the examination must be printed separately.
Print the examination as follows:

• Click on the link to "examination cover sheet". This page will appear on-screen. This is the top page of the examination.

• Make sure that your printer is turned on. Click on the Explorer "File" icon, select "print". Select the printer as necessary and start it. The cover sheet of the paper should print.

• Press the "back arrow" icon on the toolbar to return to the master page.

• Click on page 1. The first question page of the examination will appear. Print it as above.

• You can advance to page 2 by two methods:
  • Click the "Back" button on the browser menu bar. The master page will re-appear. click on the link to page 2. Page 2 will be loaded. Or

  • Scroll to the bottom of page 1, where you will see a link "go to next page". Click on this. Page 2 will be loaded.

• Print this page as above. Repeat until all 10 question pages have been printed. There should be 60 questions.

• Return to the Master page. Select and print the "candidate's answer sheet".

• Select and print the "Candidate's record form" on the other side of the answer sheet. To do this, insert the answer sheet into the printer paper tray again, select the record form, and print it. Make sure you insert the paper with the correct side up! Normally, the side you have just printed will face up in the paper tray.

• Select and print the "marker's answer sheet". Note that this is labelled "Confidential". Keep this separate from the printed examination questions!

• Select and print the "Examination Log File". This is also labelled "Confidential", since it's a table containing the paper question number, the database (file) number from which it came, its number in that database, and the answer. Keep this separate from the printed examination questions! This sheet isn't required for the examination, and you don't need to print it. However, you might want to file it for reference, as it gives the database reference of each question selected. After marking, the candidate can see it also.

Vital Security Step! When you are sure that you have printed all pages required, press the "Produce Paper" button once again! This will over-write the paper you've produced with a new, different one. The exam you've printed is gone forever, and nobody can cheat by looking at it on the computer.
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Administering an Examination: Planning.

The Examination venue should be quiet, well ventilated and friendly. Branch clubrooms, local schoolrooms, church halls may be suitable if several candidates are to be examined. For one or two candidates, a private home may also be used - if you can guarantee freedom from noise and interruptions. A toilet should be available.

You should plan for a total committed time of 3 hours, although usually the procedure will take much less time than this. Remember that you will have to

• Be completely familiar with the examination and marking procedures (read this section and the "marking" section over the night before),
• Arrive early to set things up,
• remain in the examination room for the duration of the examination,
• remain afterwards to grade the answers, fill in documentation, and notify candidates of their results.

• Prepared examination papers, and other documentation as instructed by the NZART Examinations Co-ordinator. Follow this link to see what is required.
  
• Some spare pens. (Candidates' pens may have been forgotten, or run out).
• A reliable watch or clock.
• A tape measure - The MED requires the candidate's height!

Setting up the Examination.

1. Ask candidates to remain outside while you prepare the room.
2. Arrange each candidate's seating at a desk or table far enough apart so they can't see each others' papers. Each writing position must be well lit. Window light coming from the left of a writing desk is optimum for right-handed writers. Chairs should be comfortable, and the right height for the writing surface.
3. Place a stapled copy of the examination paper, face up, at each place. Check that the cover sheet is indeed on top. Place a copy of the combined record form and answer sheet alongside each examination paper.
4. About 5 minutes before the scheduled examination start time, invite candidates into the room. Announce clearly that
   • candidates should not turn pages on the examination paper until the word to start is given.

   • While waiting, they should read the instructions on the cover sheet fully and carefully, and then fill in the details requested on the record form.

5. Seat each candidate at a prepared place. While candidates are filling in details on the record form, verify their identification, if this has not already been done. You may need to measure their height for the record form. Check that candidates have not brought any reference material into the examination room. Any sort of calculator, slide rule, or mathematical tables are permitted.
6. When all candidates are seated and have read the instructions, ask if there are any points of procedure they wish clarified. Give such clarification as is necessary. It may be a good idea to
   • verbally run through the correct procedure for marking their question answers on the answer sheet,

   • remind candidates that they may not keep their answer sheet. If they wish to check their answers later, they should note the answers they have selected on their question paper as well. They can keep the question paper.

7. Candidates may need to use a toilet during the examination, or require clarification regarding answer marking, answer changing etc. Tell them to raise a hand if necessary to attract the attention of an examiner.

Running the Examination

1. At the appointed time tell the candidates that they can start. Also that they have two hours maximum, but can leave whenever they are finished.
2. Remain in the room during the examination. Don't stalk around like a vigilante, but watch for wayward glances and raised hands.
3. If a candidate wishes to use a toilet, one examiner should escort him or her and remain (politely and unobtrusively) in the vicinity to escort back.
4. If any candidate finishes early, quietly collect their answer paper, and put it aside for later marking. After handing in the paper, the candidate must leave the examination room.
5. When two hours have elapsed, announce that the examination is finished. All remaining candidates must stop writing and hand in their answer and record sheets.
6. Ask remaining candidates to leave the room. Tell them that their answers will be marked immediately, and that they may remain outside to hear their results if they wish.
7. Don't discuss the examination with any candidate until after marking all answer sheets.
8. After all candidates have left, mark the examination as instructed in the following section.

Marking an Examination.

Both examiners must collaborate in the marking. This can, and ideally should be done in the examination room immediately after the examination is administered. The instructions below may seem over-pedantic, but it is very easy to make mistakes.

Proceed as follows:

1. Ask all candidates to leave the room. Tell them they are free to wait to hear the results of they wish to do so.
2. Find the sheet headed "NZART Examination Marker's Answer sheet". This contains the correct answer to all questions.
3. Mark each candidate's answer sheet in turn, like this:
4. Check that the "Security code" on the "Marker's answer sheet" is the same as that on the candidates's answer sheet.
5. One examiner is the answer reader. He or she reads the correct answer to each question in the words:

   " Question one, answer is a " (or b,c, or d)

6. The other examiner is the answer marker. As each answer is read, he or she repeats

   " answer is a "

   and marks the question as follows:

   
   
   • If an answer is correct the answer marker places a tick opposite the question in the column labelled "Marker".

   • If an answer is wrong the answer marker places a horizontal dash in this column.
   
   
7. When ready for the next answer, the answer marker says "OK". The the answer reader then repeats for the next question. If a candidate's answer is unclear, see the next section.
8. When all questions have been marked, both examiners must count the ticks independently. . When both agree on the total correct, this mark is entered in the designated space on the candidate's record sheet (on the back of the answer sheet).
   • If the number correct is 39 or less, circle the word "Fail".

   • If it is 40 or greater than 40, circle the word "Pass".

9. Both examiners now enter and sign the result on the candidate's record sheet, and the ERN (Examination Result Notification) form. Click this link to see a full description of processing the official results.
   
10. After all answer sheets have been marked, any candidates who chose to remain may be invited back to learn their results. They may be shown their marked answer sheet, but may not keep it. The marked answer and record sheet remains the property of the NZART. Local examiners may retain photocopies for their records.

Note: Use discretion when telling candidates their results. Some may not wish to have their mark, or their pass/fail grade announced in front of others.

In case of doubtful answers.

Both examiners should examine the change and must agree on what it means before it can be marked correct or incorrect.

If the change required is unclear to the examiners, the question must be marked wrong. . If the candidate objects to your decision,

• the answer sheet must be forwarded as soon as practicable to the NZART Examinations Co-ordinator, with a covering note. If possible, make a photocopy of the disputed sheet for your own records.
• The Examinations Co-ordinator's decision on the interpretation of the disputed answer will be final, and will be mailed to the local examiners and the candidate.

Administration: Processing the results:

• Form 1: The Candidate's record form.
• Form 2: A blue ERN form.

Security Features.

NZARTX incorporates security features which make it virtually impossible for you to inadvertantly generate an illegal examination, or to administer one in a manner which the NZART Examination Co-ordinator cannot detect. Here are questions sometimes asked, and the answers:

Couldn't the examiner choose a paper with "easy questions?"
No. The examiner cannot influence the choice of questions. They're selected randomly, using a random number seed obtained from the host computer's date/time clock. Every paper generated will be different. There are about 1,000,000 possible different papers.

Couldn't an unethical examiner "modify" the question files supplied to "make them easier?"
No. Question papers can be generated if, and only if, the question files files are exactly as distributed. If any file is altered in any way, the CRC check will fail, and no paper can be produced.

Couldn't the examiner change the questions produced, since they're just in text files?
No. This will be detected in an audit. The "Security Code" printed on every page of the examination and answers sheet is unique. The NZART Examination Co-ordinator has software to reproduce the paper that this security should have generated. Any differences will be obvious. This also makes it impossible for anyone to edit up a paper that "looks genuine", since it is impossible to assign it the correct Security code.

Couldn't a candidate cheat by looking at the exam left on the disk beforehand?
No. because if standard security practice is followed, the paper they'll see is different from the one they'll sit. (This means it is quite OK to leave all the software on the Branch computer).

Couldn't a completely ignorant candidate memorize enough answers to the 600 questions to pass?
Yes. Answers to some (Regulations, procedural) questions must be memorized. But memorizing answers to the technical and algebraic questions would be quite a feat. If somebody did that, they'd probably pick up enough knowledge to pass anyway.

Couldn't a candidate "improve his/her chances" by generating a lot of exam papers and noting "which questions are asked most often?"
No. Each question has the same probability of being in any exam. There is no pattern. There are 10^30 possible combinations of questions, of which about a million are possible to generate.
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The CRC checking process.

The M bit polynomial, called the "generator polynomial" is written as an M bit binary number. The message to be checked (here the bit pattern of a text file) is shifted into a shift register from the right, one bit at a time. After each shift, the register contents are exclusive ORed (XORed) with the bit pattern of the generator polynomial. This continues until the complete message has been processed. The final content of the shift register is the CRC value.

For security purposes, the CRC value of each correct file is computed and stored. It's computed again whenever the file is to be used. If even one bit, anywhere in the file, has changed, the final CRC is different, and the check fails.

Unless you know the register initialization bit pattern, the actual algorithm and polynomial used, and the algorithm used to encrypt the CRC into the Security code, it's mathematically almost impossible to "break" the code.

You can run a CRC check on the files without producing a paper by clicking on "advanced/Check CRC" (Top left corner). This is not particularly helpful, but the button is there for the possible addition of later features, if we think of any.
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About the Program and System requirements.

Here are Microsoft's comments about Internet Explorer 6:

The recommended system configuration is Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), or Microsoft Windows NT on a computer running with a Pentium III processor and 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM. Below are the minimum requirements your computer needs to run Internet Explorer 6. Note: Additional system requirements are not required when running Windows XP.

Minimum Requirements
Computer/Processor Computer with a 486/66-megahertz (MHz) processor or higher (Pentium processor recommended)
Operating System Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6a (SP6a) and higher, or Windows 2000

Memory For Internet Explorer 6:
RAM requirements depend on the operating system used

Windows 98: 16 MB of RAM minimum. Full install size: 11.5 MB

Windows 98 Second Edition: 16 MB of RAM minimum. Full install size: 12.4 MB

Windows NT 4.0 with SP6a and higher: 32 MB of RAM minimum. Full install size: 12.7 MB

Windows 2000: 32 MB of RAM minimum. Full install size: 12 MB

Windows Me Edition: 32 MB of RAM minimum. Full install size: 8.7 MB Drive CD-ROM drive (if installation is done from a CD-ROM) Display Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors

Author: This software was written by Gary, ZL1AN. Fred ZL2AMJ made substantial input to the original question database, drew the diagrams and found many typos and formatting errors. Jim ZL2BHF vetted every question. Several other beta testers, in particular Ron ZL1TW, pointed out unfriendly features. The database for sections 1 and 2 were substantially modified by Fred ZL2AMJ with help from other experts in 2004 and 2006 to reflect revised Radio regulations. All bug reports should be sent to

morseman@nzart.co.nz

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Copyright Notice:

Appendix: History and Updates:

• November 2006: Source code version 3.0 was compiled as NZARTX07 incorporating substantial modifications, co-ordinated by Fred ZL2AMJ, of question databases 1 and 2 reflecting revised regulations. Form colour changed to silver to differentiate from previous versions. Copyright notice included.
• January 2006: Version 2.0 of NZARTX05 produced with modified incantation to open browser. Fixes error message produced on some systems "c is not a registered protocol". The construction given in Delphi documentation does not always work! Found this fix on web, but only one reference to it!
• Version 1.0 of revised code NZARTX05 of August 2005 replaced question 1.47 to reflect change in regulations.
• Version 6.1 of September 04 fixed bugs causing some questions to format incorrectly.
• Version 6.0 replaced the version 5 series in June 2004 to incorporate changes to the examination syllabus.
• Version 5 series replaced previous DOS versions in 2001. Internet Explorer 6.0 was specified as the standard paper formatter and printer.