Client

The client was a tutor, working 1-on-1 with students to prepare them for standardized exams.

The Problem

With many students to manage, each with their own weaknesses that required reinforcement, it was extremely time-consuming to prepare worksheets with questions tailored to their needs.

Design and Development

The first portion of this project involved setting up a system in Google Sheets to easily identify a set of potential questions appropriate for a given student.

Scans of past exam questions were already organized into folders, and the spreadsheet specified their topics (e.g. questions 7, 9, and 11-13 were about Geometry).

With some lookup formulas and filters, I designed a “question number generator” that allowed the user to see a comma-separated list of questions based on either a topic or a student.

For the second part of the project, we took these questions and fed them into a Microsoft Word macro. The prompt accepted the string, parsed it, and looked in the correct local folder to insert all question images into predetermined positions.

Results

The client could now prepare for tutoring sessions with just a few minutes of work. It was also futureproof, as long as they kept the same file/folder naming conventions.

We have liftoff! Works great so far.

Need something similar done? Contact me to see how we can work together.