Symbol Character Quiz

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About This MicroSim

This MicroSim quizzes you on the names of the 31 ASCII symbol characters used in programming. A grid displays all the symbols — no letters or digits, just the punctuation and special characters. When you start the quiz, a symbol name appears (like "Ampersand" or "Left Curly Brace") and you click the matching character. Get it wrong and you'll see "Try again!" — get them all right and you earn a confetti celebration!

How to Use

Set the number of questions using the slider (1 to 31).
Click "Start Quiz" to begin.
Read the symbol name shown below the grid.
Click the matching symbol in the grid.
If correct, you advance to the next question. If wrong, try again until you find the right one.
Complete all questions to see a celebration animation!

Symbol Character Names

Char	Dec	Name
`!`	33	Exclamation Mark
`"`	34	Double Quote
`#`	35	Hash / Number Sign
`$`	36	Dollar Sign
`%`	37	Percent Sign
`&`	38	Ampersand
`'`	39	Single Quote
`(`	40	Left Parenthesis
`)`	41	Right Parenthesis
`*`	42	Asterisk
`+`	43	Plus Sign
`,`	44	Comma
`-`	45	Hyphen / Minus
`.`	46	Period
`/`	47	Forward Slash
`:`	58	Colon
`;`	59	Semicolon
`<`	60	Less-Than Sign
`=`	61	Equals Sign
`>`	62	Greater-Than Sign
`?`	63	Question Mark
`@`	64	At Sign
`[`	91	Left Square Bracket
`\`	92	Backslash
`]`	93	Right Square Bracket
`^`	94	Caret
`_`	95	Underscore
`	96	Backtick
`{`	123	Left Curly Brace
`\\|`	124	Pipe
`}`	125	Right Curly Brace
`~`	126	Tilde

Iframe Embed Code

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/computer-science/sims/symbol-character-quiz/main.html"
        height="512px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade Level

9-12 (High School Computer Science)

Duration

10-15 minutes

Prerequisites

Familiarity with the ASCII Character Map MicroSim
Basic awareness that programming uses many special characters

Activities

Warm-Up (3 min): Have students look at the symbol grid and try to name as many characters as they can before starting the quiz.
Quiz Round 1 (5 min): Start with 10 questions. Students take the quiz individually and note which symbols they miss.
Full Quiz (5 min): Set the slider to 31 and attempt all symbols. Challenge students to get a perfect score and earn the celebration!

Assessment

Can the student correctly identify common programming symbols by name?
Can the student distinguish between similar symbols (forward slash vs. backslash, parentheses vs. brackets vs. braces)?
Does the student know the names of less common symbols like tilde, caret, and pipe?