Using variables for answers to fill-in-the-blank questions

Hello,
For fill-in-the-blank questions, one has to provide answers. I want to provide these in the form of (user-created) variables, rather than in the form of fixed strings of characters (so then, as $$var1$$ rather than as 'rabbit'). I haven't been able to get this to work. The enter variable function is indeed available (in the properties panel), but it doesn't actually work (i.e. even if you select a variable to be entered, it doesn't actually get entered).
Is there a way around the problem?
1. NB that this same issue holds for text entry boxes (rather than fill-in-the-blank questions). If I could get this to work for text entry boxes, I would use them rather than fill-in-the-blank questions.
2. One can use variables for answers to multiple choice questions. So I'm hoping I can get it to work for fill-in-the-blank questions as well.
Thank you in advance. Marvin DuBois

That would have been my suggestion. I don't have a dedicated blog post, but use TEB's for that kind of questions myself as well. And contrary to the widget/interaction I mentioned before, a TEB is an interactive object, which means it can be validated and there can be a score attached to it. But, it will not help you, since you have to add the correct answers in the same way as for a dropdown list in the FIB question (they are sort of TEB's there). And it is that list that doesn't allow to enter a variable instead of a fixed sequence of characters.
Which means that you are back to the advanced actions, same as in my blog posts with the widget/interaction.
Have a workaround (after all I am the workaround Queen) to have reporting, if you need to check only one TEB, described here:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/report-custom-questions-part-2
The idea is to use another interactive object that can have a score. In reality I use two instances of that same object: one with score 0 and one with score X and show the right one depending on the conditional action.
However if you want to have multiple TEB's on the same slide, that have to be checked all with the same advanced action, than you'll need either the Mastery widget by InfoSemantics (only for SWF output) or Javascript.
Lilybiri

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Using variables for answers to fill-in-the-blank questions

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