Grading logarithms in Maple T.A.

[jmtrik]

If you want to grade equality of some functions you need to be careful of branch cuts. For example the equality of logs need assumptions on the variables to check for simple equality.

If, for example, you had the teacher's answer and student's response like the following

$TA="ln(x^a)";
$RESPONSE="a*ln(x)";

Then you could use this grading code

assume(a>0);
assume(x>0);
evalb(simplify($TA-$RESPONSE=0));

Alternatively you can use simplify(.., symbolic) which symbolically rearranges the expression, ignoring possible branch cuts.

evalb(simplify($TA-$RESPONSE=0,symbolic));