ExamView, also known as the textbook’s question bank, is currently rocking my world. It started a few months back when I picked up on something David Cox said.
Rather than tell you, let me show you.
Yawn. Except, that question is dynamic. “What?” you say. I just click this little calculator button and…
…all the numbers change.
Oh, and the wrong answers are all programmed with common distractors, the stuff kids always mess up. Man, that one took me some time. Two of the wrong answers catch the kid messing up when simplifying i². Another is my favorite fraction-simplification mistake (it’s A in the first question and C in the second) — don’t you just love when kids go that route?
Write your own question bank
I’ve invested heavily this week in writing a question bank with lots of dynamic questions. It’s time consuming. It requires thinking in algorithms. And, it requires patience. If you wonder where to start, dive in with the questions that came with your textbook. Every good programmer starts by modifying someone else’s code, so why not you?
(The insecure kid inside of me — the one who sucked at high school math — is worried there is some major error in my math above. Please, for her sake, be nice when you tell me about it!)
Megan Hayes-Golding 
We have ExamView, too, and I love it! (For all the same reasons as you do.) It’s also so nice if you want to create study guides that are more or less parallel to the actual test. A bit of a learning curve for me at first in terms of the shortcuts, but I will never go back if I don’t have to! Love your blog!
Erica — do your study guides show up on paper or on the computer? I think I’ll be doing something similar on paper but calling it homework or extra practice.