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Help
How do I select the exercises?
The exercises are grouped clearly according to grammar topic — just click on the topic you want to work on, and select from the exercises listed.
The exercises are also all colour coded: The title bars are either blue (easy), purple (medium) or red (difficult). You can skip exercises that seem too difficult for your level and return to them later.
How do I do an exercise?
Select the topic you want to work on; then select an exercise from the list. Complete it by typing in the responses in the gaps (watch your spelling!). When you have finished, click 'check' to check your answers and to get a score. If you gave an incorrect answer, please try again - you can use the help or feedback buttons to give you hints.
To move on to the next exercise in a section, click the forward arrow button at the top or bottom of the page. To move back, click the back arrow. You can click on Index to get back to the index of exercises. The number of exercises under each topic varies. When you finish the last exercise of a particular group you are brought back to the index automatically.
What kinds of exercise are there and how do they work?
There are 5 main types of exercises, as well as a few crosswords:
1) jbc: Multiple choice: pick the correct answer(s).
Click to select an answer — a message in the title bar will tell you whether you have the right answer or not. If not, in some exercises you can click on hint for help — the hint will appear in the title bar at the top of the page, or the first letter of the correct answer will appear in the appropriate answer-box.
2) jqz: Give short answers
These ask you to give a grammatical analysis (e.g. to say how many accusative objects there are in a given sentence), to provide a translation, etc. Fill in the answer in the space provided. Click check to see if you answers are right. Clicking on hint will give you a clue by revealing the first letter of the answer, or by telling you the type of word to fill in.
3) jcl: Cloze tests (fill in the gaps)
Fill in the missing words in the text — try to fill in all the boxes before you check your answers and get your score by clicking check. Any wrong answers will remain in their box for you to try again. Click on [?] to get a hint about what type of word to fill in — the hint will appear in the title bar at the top of the page. If you are still stuck, click hint (at the end of the exercise) to get the first letter of the correct answer for the box you are working on.
4) jmx: Put the words in the right order.
Put the words in the right order by clicking on them. For instance, if you think the sentence begins „Der Junge", you should click on „Der" followed by „Junge" — the words will appear in the title bar in the order you select them. If you make a mistake, click Undo to undo your last selection, or Restart to begin the sentence all over again. Remember to include the punctuation.
5) jmt: Match the sentences or questions on the left to sentences or answers on the right.
Click check at the end to get your score.
6) Crosswords, for fun!
What if I get stuck?
• At any time you can click on the Help button on the left of your screen to get help with how to do the exercises, to look up the meaning of a gramamtical term or abbreviation in the glossary, or to check the meaning of a word in a dictionary.
• Depending on the type of exercise, there are Help and feedback functions that you should use if you have difficulties.
•If you have problems with a particular exercise and find the feedback or help not sufficient, you can place a question on the Bulletin board. Either a fellow student or a member of staff will then answer your question. It doesn’t matter whether your question is about how to use the software or about grammar or anything else you’d like to ask!
Help, the font is too big/small!
You can change the size of the font by going to the Edit menu, then selecting Preferences. In the dialogue box which appears, select Fonts (on the left, listed under the heading Appearance). Then change the size of the fonts in the right of the dialogue box — entering a bigger number, e.g. 18, will give a larger font size; 10 will give a smaller font size.
The exercises reflect the level and grammatical topics covered in first year German at TCD, covering a broad range from very easy to quite challenging.