Ainsi que or tout comme

Hi David,

there are usually many possible alternatives how to answer a given question. But since each question focuses on a specific topic, the expected answer is the one that uses the grammar of the lesson under review.

Here the point is to engrain the use of "ainsi que".

-- Chris.

But the questions occur in the course of doing quizzes. One is not necessarily coming from the lesson, or may not have even seen it. Surely where the question has more than one correct answer all correct answers should be accepted. They are in many other places in Kwiziq.

It is frustrating here (and in Lingvist and Duolingo) when you have to remember what it is that the examiner wants to hear, rather than just being concerned with what is correct. At least in Duolingo they will often add the other solutions when these are brought to their attention.

But perhaps in this case there is a reason why "ainsi que" is correct and "tout comme" is not? Perhaps Aurelie, Cecile or someone else from Kwiziq will respond?

I understand your frustration but it would be an impossible task to include all possible correct ways to answer a question.

Think of a question in a quiz as being targeted to train you on a specific linguistic issue. And being marked "wrong" simply means that you either dodged the issue or were simply wrong.

-- Chris.

I do not think it is impossible.

When Kwiziq wants you to use one way out of many it usually offers a hint. And when there are multiple possible answers it has the multiple choice and checkbox approach. 

For written answers, possibly the software is not set up to match multiple phrases. I cannot immedately recall noticing cases of this in Kwiziq but both Duloingo and Lingvist do just that.

And part of the art of creating quizzes such as this is to ensure that there is only one correct answer.

In this example even the Explain link, which is one of the greatest features of Kwiziq, does not take you to a page that explains the use of this verb in this context. Perhaps the software needs to allow Explain to offer several lessons that relate to different aspects of the quiz question. Not that it would find one in this case since "Have faith" does not seem to be explained in any lesson so far.

I agree that it's confusing when you're taking a general quiz and your correct answer is marked wrong because it's not the answer the test maker was looking for. If we were just coming off a particular lesson, sure, but that's not how these quizzes work. I understand it's not easy to accommodate multiple possibilities, but it undermines our learning when we are told a correct way of saying something is wrong.

Language learning is already challenging!