Exam Class points that don't belong to any question

I'm creating a test, and I would like to award some points for respecting instructions, like this

\documentclass[addpoints]{exam}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\title{sandbox}
\begin{document}
\begin{questions}

\setcounter{question}{0}

\qformat{}
\question
Points will be given for
\begin{parts}
\part[1] Quality of drawings
\part[4] Clear explanation
\end{parts}
\noqformat{}

\question[5]
Draw a ring.
% \setcounter{question}{8}
\question[5]

\end{questions}
\end{document}


But the setcounter seems to have no effect.

• Thanks, I think I did that, in my last post. – Rob625 Jan 15 '19 at 20:26

I guess (because I don't totally understand), that you want the two last questions to be numbered 1. and 2. In this case, you set the counter to the wrong value (as it has value 0 at this point by default). If you change it to \setcounter{question}{-1} you'll get the correct numbers. To suppress the false entry in the \gradetable I use \item instead of \question. It does produce the correct output (as far as I can see), but I don't know which other things might be implied here.

\documentclass[addpoints]{exam}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\title{sandbox}
\begin{document}
\begin{questions}

\setcounter{question}{-1}

\qformat{}
\item
Points will be given for
\begin{parts}
\part[1] Quality of drawings
\part[4] Clear explanation
\end{parts}
\noqformat{}

\question[5]
Draw a ring.
% \setcounter{question}{8}
\question[5]

\end{questions}
\end{document}


• Thanks, that gives what I want for the question numbers. Unfortunately the gradetable doesn't work. – Rob625 Jan 14 '19 at 18:37
• @Rob625 see my edit. – Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz Jan 14 '19 at 18:50

Thanks, you have helped me to achieve what I wanted:

\documentclass[addpoints]{exam}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\title{sandbox}
\begin{document}
\begin{questions}

\setcounter{question}{-1}

\qformat{}
\item
Points will be given for
\begin{parts}
\part[1] Quality of drawings
\part[2] Clear explanation
\end{parts}
\noqformat{}

\question[10]
Draw a ring.
\question[20]