Creating quiz questions for SAB using ChatGPT

I was pleasantly surprised this afternoon to discover (at the pre-EMDC Scripture App Builder workshop) that SAB allows you to add comprehension checking questions in various forms. One of the simplest forms is multiple choice questions. But I am “lazy”, and the thought of coming up with a whole bunch of questions myself doesn’t excite me. So I turned to ChatGPT and typed in this prompt:

Here is the format for a multiple choice questions for Scripture App Builder:

\qu Who was Joseph’s father?
\ar Jacob
\ae Yes, correct! Jacob was his father
\aw Samuel
\ae No that’s not right
\aw Saul
\ae No, Saul wasn’t around at that time.
\aw Salomi
\ae Salomi is a woman, so she couldn’t have been his father.

Now make me a bunch of multiple choice questions in the same format as the pattern above based on the Biblical story of Ruth in the Bible.

Given the specific nature of my question, I wasn’t hopeful that it could fulfill my request, but why not try anyway, I thought…

Within seconds it generated this response:

Sure! Here are some multiple-choice questions based on the Biblical story of Ruth:

\qu Where did Ruth’s family originally come from?
\ar Moab
\ae Yes, correct! Ruth’s family was from Moab.
\aw Canaan
\ae No, Canaan was not their place of origin.
\aw Egypt
\ae No, they were not from Egypt.
\aw Babylon
\ae No, they were not from Babylon.

\qu What was the name of Ruth’s mother-in-law?
\ar Naomi
\ae Yes, correct! Ruth’s mother-in-law was Naomi.
\aw Sarah
\ae No, Sarah was not her mother-in-law.
\aw Rachel
\ae No, Rachel was not her mother-in-law.
\aw Esther
\ae No, Esther was not her mother-in-law.

\qu In which book of the Bible is the story of Ruth found?
\ar Book of Ruth
\ae Yes, correct! The story of Ruth is found in the Book of Ruth.
\aw Book of Genesis
\ae No, it is not found in the Book of Genesis.
\aw Book of Exodus
\ae No, it is not found in the Book of Exodus.
\aw Book of Psalms
\ae No, it is not found in the Book of Psalms.

\qu Who was Ruth’s second husband?
\ar Boaz
\ae Yes, correct! Boaz was Ruth’s second husband.
\aw David
\ae No, David was not her second husband.
\aw Solomon
\ae No, Solomon was not her second husband.
\aw Samuel
\ae No, Samuel was not her second husband.

\qu Which important figure is a descendant of Ruth and Boaz?
\ar King David
\ae Yes, correct! King David is a descendant of Ruth and Boaz.
\aw Moses
\ae No, Moses is not a descendant of Ruth and Boaz.
\aw Abraham
\ae No, Abraham is not a descendant of Ruth and Boaz.
\aw Noah
\ae No, Noah is not a descendant of Ruth and Boaz.

Feel free to customize the answers or add more questions as per your requirements.

I then proceeded to pick myself off the floor in amazement that it not only understood what I asked it to do (in plain English), but that it worked out the pattern (and meaning!) of the non-standard SFM codes to generate a very usable set of questions.

Of course, there were a bunch of skeptics in the room, and they said, Yeah, but now try that in another language. So, nothing ventured, nothing gained… I then tried this:

Excellent. Nice work. Now can you translate these into Hindi?

and again, it gladly complied!

Sure! Here are the translated multiple-choice questions in Hindi based on the Biblical story of Ruth:

\qu जैकब के पिता का नाम क्या था?
\ar अब्राहम
\ae हाँ, सही जवाब! जैकब के पिता का नाम अब्राहम था।
\aw समुएल
\ae नहीं, यह सही नहीं है।
\aw सौल
\ae नहीं, उस समय सौल मौजूद नहीं था।
\aw सलोमी
\ae सलोमी एक महिला है, इसलिए वह उनके पिता नहीं हो सकती।

\qu रूथ का परिवार मूल रूप से किस देश से था?
\ar मोऐब
\ae हाँ, सही जवाब! रूथ का परिवार मोऐब से था।
\aw कनान
\ae नहीं, कनान उनका मूल देश नहीं था।
\aw मिस्र
\ae नहीं, उनका मूल देश मिस्र नहीं था।
\aw बाबिल
\ae नहीं, उनका मूल देश बाबिल नहीं था।

\qu रूथ की सास का नाम क्या था?
\ar नोमी
\ae हाँ, सही जवाब! रूथ की सास का नाम नोमी था।
\aw सारा
\ae नहीं, सारा उनकी सास नहीं थी।
\aw रेखेल
\ae नहीं, रेखेल उनकी सास नहीं थी।
\aw एस्तेर
\ae नहीं, एस्तेर उनकी सास नहीं थी।

\qu बाइबल के किस पुस्तक में रूथ की कहानी है?
\ar रूथ की पुस्तक
\ae हाँ, सही जवाब! रूथ की कहानी रू

not sure why it suddenly stopped… (maybe there’s a character limit)

Anyway, why not try French and see what it does:

My friends don’t believe you! Can you translate the same set of questions into French?

And for those who understand French, judge for yourselves whether this idea is useful and whether you can use ChatGPT to take some of the drudgery out of creating simple comprehension questions for your Scripture apps.

Certainly! Here are the translated multiple-choice questions in French based on the Biblical story of Ruth:

\qu Qui était le père de Jacob ?
\ar Abraham
\ae Oui, correct ! Abraham était son père.
\aw Samuel
\ae Non, ce n’est pas correct.
\aw Saul
\ae Non, Saul n’était pas présent à cette époque.
\aw Salomé
\ae Salomé est une femme, donc elle ne pouvait pas être son père.

\qu D’où venait initialement la famille de Ruth ?
\ar Moab
\ae Oui, correct ! La famille de Ruth venait de Moab.
\aw Canaan
\ae Non, Canaan n’était pas leur lieu d’origine.
\aw Égypte
\ae Non, ils ne venaient pas d’Égypte.
\aw Babylone
\ae Non, ils ne venaient pas de Babylone.

\qu Comment s’appelait la belle-mère de Ruth ?
\ar Naomi
\ae Oui, correct ! Naomi était la belle-mère de Ruth.
\aw Sarah
\ae Non, Sarah n’était pas sa belle-mère.
\aw Rachel
\ae Non, Rachel n’était pas sa belle-mère.
\aw Esther
\ae Non, Esther n’était pas sa belle-mère.

\qu Dans quel livre de la Bible se trouve l’histoire de Ruth ?
\ar Livre de Ruth
\ae Oui, correct ! L’histoire de Ruth se trouve dans le Livre de Ruth.
\aw Livre de la Genèse
\ae Non, elle ne se trouve pas dans le Livre de la Genèse.
\aw Livre de l’Exode
\ae Non, elle ne se trouve pas dans le Livre de l’Exode.
\aw Livre des Psaumes
\ae Non, elle ne se trouve pas dans le Livre des Psaumes.

\qu Qui était le deuxième mari de Ruth ?
\ar Boaz
\ae Oui, correct ! Boaz était le deuxième mari de Ruth.
\aw David
\ae Non, David n’était pas son deuxième mari.
\aw Salomon
\ae Non, Salomon n’était pas son deuxième mari.
\aw Samuel
\ae Non, Samuel n’était pas son deuxième mari.

\qu Quelle personnalité importante est une descendante de Ruth et Boaz ?
\ar Le roi David
\ae Oui, correct ! Le roi David est un descendant de Ruth et Boaz.
\aw Moïse
\ae Non, Moïse n’est pas un descendant de Ruth et Boaz.
\aw Abraham
\ae Non, Abraham n’est pas un descendant de Ruth et Boaz.
\aw Noé
\ae Non, Noé n’est pas un descendant de Ruth et Boaz.

Feel free to use these translated questions in French with your friends!

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But can it do this in minority languages with limited literature?

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I doubt that the existing ChatGPT interface will be able to do the same for minority languages, BUT almost everyday the large language models are getting more ambitious. Just two weeks ago Meta released a new Language Model with 1000+ languages (existing scripture data was also used to train this model). Here’s the list of iso codes included in that model.

I realize that there are 8000+ languages, and most of those are still “off list”, but we should be encouraged that we’re no longer just focused on the “top 20”, and are starting to see things move for a large number of minority languages.

That’s a staggering list of languages. I found some pretty small minority languages in there that I’ve done some work with – I guess if you were to rank languages in order of the number of speakers, by language № 1001 you’d be down to a pretty small number of speakers.

Does “MMS” in the title of that page stand for “Massively Multilingual Speech”?

Yes, that’s right. Here’s a link if you want more details/examples.

Is “also used” an understatement, maybe? I read somewhere that they were only able to work with 1000 languages because those were languages with translations of the Scriptures. Presumably for the smaller languages, their entire dataset was (portions of) the Bible.