Algebra I Speed Drill

What this app is

A speed-drill tool for Algebra I students to practice the conceptual "how-tos" (like "How do you multiply expressions with the same base?") before a unit assessment. Students pick a unit and a drill length, then race through multiple-choice questions while the timer counts down. At the end they see their score, a topic-by-topic breakdown, and a full review of every question.

Everything is one HTML file — no install, no login, no student data is sent anywhere. Works in any modern browser, offline or online.

Editing questions

Click Edit Questions on the home page. Use the dropdown at the top of the editor to switch between Unit 1 through Unit 8. Each question is a card with four editable areas:

• Topic — a short label (e.g., "Quadratic Formula"). This appears in the topic breakdown students see on the results screen.
• Question — what students will read.
• Answer Choices — between 2 and 4 choices. Click the green radio button next to the choice that is correct.
• Student preview — a live preview below the inputs showing what students will see, including rendered math.

Actions on each question card

• ↑ ↓ — reorder the question within the unit.
• Duplicate — make an exact copy of this question right below it. Handy when you want a similar question but with different answer choices.
• Delete — remove the question (asks for confirmation first).

Adding new questions

Scroll to the bottom of the editor and click + Add Question to this Unit. A new card appears with placeholder text — just edit it like any other card.

Adding or removing answer choices

Each question allows 2 to 4 choices. Use + Add Choice below the choices, or the × button next to any choice to remove it. The choice marked with the green radio button is the correct one.

Resetting

• Reset Unit (in the editor toolbar) — restore the current unit to the original default questions.
• Reset all to defaults (at the bottom of the home page) — wipe every edit across every unit. This cannot be undone.

Writing math notation (LaTeX)

For real math symbols (fractions, radicals, the quadratic formula, etc.), wrap your math in dollar signs: $ ... $. The student preview shows what the result looks like. Plain text without dollar signs is left alone, so existing questions don't need to change.

Common patterns:

• $x^2$ — exponent
• $\sqrt{48}$ — square root
• $\frac{1}{2}$ — fraction
• $x_1, y_2$ — subscripts
• $\pm, \cdot, \geq, \leq, \neq$ — common symbols
• $\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$ — the quadratic formula

The full cheat sheet (with each example rendered live) is in the yellow panel at the top of the editor — click How to write math notation to expand it.

Trying the drill yourself

Click Try the Drill to run a drill from a student's perspective. Use this before sharing to test your edits.

• Pick a unit — all 8 units are available.
• Pick a duration — five timed presets (30 sec, 1, 2, 3, 5 min), a custom seconds field, or the purple Untimed button for practice mode.
• Click Start Drill.

During the drill

Pick an answer. The correct choice turns green with a ✓; if you picked wrong, your choice turns red with a ✗. Click Next to advance — the drill doesn't auto-advance, so students set their own pace within the timer. The timer turns yellow at 30 seconds left, red at 10 seconds.

In Untimed / Practice Mode, the timer counts UP from zero and the drill only ends when you click End Drill. Good for students who freeze under time pressure or who want low-stress practice the night before a test.

After the drill

Students see:

• Their score (correct out of attempted) and accuracy percentage.
• A Topic breakdown — every topic they saw, with a color-coded score (green if 100%, yellow if 50%+, red below 50%), sorted weakest first so the topics to review jump to the top.
• A scrollable review of every question with their answer and the correct answer marked.

Sharing with students

Click Share with Students on the home page. There are two options.

Option 1: Download a student file (recommended)

Click Download Student File. The browser saves Algebra1_Speed_Drill_Students.html with your edits baked in and the teacher controls hidden. Upload it to Google Classroom, email it as an attachment, or post it on your class page. Once a student has the file, it works offline.

Option 2: Copy a student link

Use this only if you've already uploaded the teacher HTML to a hosted location students can reach (school website, GitHub Pages, etc.). Click Generate, then Copy. The link encodes your edited questions inside the URL itself — students open the link and see your version with no teacher tools visible.

Tips

• Use Duplicate to build variations of the same topic — duplicate, then change only the wording or the distractors.
• Each topic has one default question. You can add as many additional questions per topic as you want; the drill will randomly cycle through all of them.
• If a 5-minute drill on a small unit ends up repeating questions, that's intentional — the drill reshuffles and reuses the pool when it runs out.
• The Topic field is what shows up in the breakdown on results. Keep it short and consistent (e.g., "Slope from Two Points", not "Slope from any pair of points (x1,y1) and (x2,y2)").