Soumajit Adhya¹ and S. K. Setua², ¹J.D. Birla Institute, India and ²University of Calcutta, India

The paper proposes a method to assess short answer written by student using friendship matrix, representation of friendship graph. The Short Answer is a type of answer which is based on facts. These answers are quite different from long answers and Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) type answers. The friendship graph is a graph which is based on friendship condition i.e. the nodes have only one common neighbor. Friendship matrix is the matrix form of the friendship graph. The student answer is stored in a friendship matrix and the teacher answer is stored in another friendship matrix and both the matrices are compared. Based on the number of errors encountered from student answer an error marks is calculated and that number is subtracted from full marks to get student grade.

Friendship Graph, Friendship Matrix, Short Answer, Triplets