Building Quiz

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Main page ► Managing a Moodle course ► Activities ► Quiz module ► Building Quiz

Quiz module

• Quiz settings
• Building Quiz
• Using Quiz
• Quiz reports
• Quiz FAQ

Navigation > Courses > Course Name > Topic/section > Info

Once a quiz has been added to the course and the Quiz settings established,the teacher can start to build the quiz. The teacher can use the Navigation menu to get to the quiz's "info" link or click directly on the Quiz name on the course's home page. Here is a quiz just after it was created:

[[{File:Quiz_info_editing_new_21.PNG|frame|center|A blank quiz in 2.1 ready to be built]]

You may want to look at previewing an existing quiz or editing questions in the Question bank.

The basic ideas of quiz-making

The basic idea is in building a quiz is to add questions from the question bank, organize them by page and determine the value of each question.

There are several ways to add questions. From the editing quiz tab, the teacher can add question by using the "Question bank contents {Show)" link to find an existing question or use the "Add a question" button to create a new question that is automatically added to the question bank.

In the question bank you can create categories, which are similar to folders in your computer file system. You can use Categories to create a hierarchy for organising your questions. Depending upon permissions, you might have access to questions created for other courses by other teachers in the question bank.

You can use random questions so that different students get different questions, or so that one student gets different questions each time they attempt the quiz. When a student starts an attempt at the quiz, the random question will be replaced by an actual question, picked at random from a certain category in the question bank.

A paper quiz example

As an example, think of the quiz like a simple traditional paper test. You have a blank piece of paper in front of you and an overall plan for the quiz. You may have a filing cabinet next to you with all the questions you or other teachers have written for your course, your department or school. When you decide to add a new question, you will decide what type of question it is going to be. Or you can go to the filing cabinate (Question bank) that has individual questions neatly organized and look at it. You will then start typing the question(Question text) and its answers (Choices) according to it's type. You will make a side note of the correct answer(s), determine how much full or partial credit (grade) you will give for each answer and how much the question is worth in your quiz. When you are done with a question, you go onto the next question and repeat the process.

In our paper example, we did not mention that every question gets written on its own form and is always put in the filing cabinet filled with questions. When you created a question, you might have thought about hints you could give your students in class about each question, or what you would like to tell the student about their answer. Moodle has a place to record these kinds of things if you want to use them.

Your overall plan for the paper quiz, probably will include how many points it is worth. Most teachers like to write the score on the students exam, with some sort of note based upon the score. As part of the quiz plan, the teacher has decided what kind of grading system they will use or not use. Moodle can store this information in its "Update settings" area.

While in theory is possible for a teacher to create an individual paper quiz for each student, it is not practical because of the required effort. However, you will discover that such things are possible with less effort by using different features of the quiz module and the question bank. We will keep it simple but you might be thinking about creative ways to use various settings.

"This page is still under revision to update it to 2.x. From this point on the page has not been double checked against a 2.0 Moodle. However, most of the instructions still apply. Please move or delete this note as necessary--Chris collman 21:01, 26 August 2011 (WST)'

Compiling a new quiz

Adding questions to a quiz

Once you’ve created your questions, you’ll need to add them to the quiz. There are many types in the Question bank that you can use. Alternatively, you may choose to import questions.

First use the 'Category' menu to select the category containing the questions you want to add (item 3 in the diagram below).

The chevrons (<< icons) to the left of the questions are used to add individual questions to the quiz. You can also select several questions using the checkboxes on the left of the question list and then click the "Add to quiz" button at the bottom of the list to add then all at once. If you want to add all the displayed questions then use the 'Select all' link. [[Image:Quiz.gif|frame|left|This shows four methods of adding questions including adding random questions dealt with in more detail below (Moodle 1.8)]]<br style="clear:both;">

Editing question order in a quiz

Once you’ve added a question to the quiz, they appears on the left side of the screen in the quiz question list. This edit view can only be see when no attempts have been made by students. [[Image:Quiz Edit no attempts.png|thumb|center|A quiz in edit mode, where questions have been added, and no students have attempted the quiz. This quiz has random and fixed questions from 2 question categories.]]

You can change the order of the questions with the move icons. You can move a question out of the quiz with the chevrons (>> icons). Of course you can use the edit and preview icons next to any question that will bring up a pop up window. The teacher can move or reset the page breaks on this screen.

Quiz will not let you add the same question to the same quiz more than once and will not display the same question twice to the students when both random and fixed questions are used from a single category.

Remember if the Quiz setting is set to randomize question order, the order you see in this view will not be what your students see when they make an attempt.

Grading questions

You will also need to set the grade for each question. You can set the number of points for each question in the Grade column. This allows you to set the relative weight of each question in the quiz. You may want to make certain questions or question types worth more than others. You should also set the 'Maximum grade' for the whole quiz. This does not have to be equal to the sum of the grades for the individual questions. The grades achieved by the students will be rescaled to be out of this maximum grade. After adjusting these grade settings you should click on the 'Save grades' button.

Adding random questions

A random question places a link that will select a unique question at random from a specific question category. Random questions are selected when the quiz is generated for a specific student attempt.

This means that different students are likely to get a different selection of questions when they attempt this quiz. For example, when a quiz has 10 random questions that draw on a question category with 30 questions. If a quiz allows multiple attempts for each student then each attempt will also contain a new selection of questions.

The same question will never appear twice in a quiz. If you include several random questions then different questions will always be chosen for each of them. If you mix random questions with non-random questions then the random questions will be chosen so that they do not duplicate one of the non-random questions. This does imply that you need to provide enough questions in the category from which the random questions are chosen, otherwise the student will be shown a friendly error message. The more questions you provide the more likely it will be that students get different questions on each attempt.

The grade for the randomly chosen question will be rescaled so that the maximum grade is what you have chosen as the grade for the random question.

To add random questions, select the question category you wish to use, then use the drop-down menu at the bottom of the Question Bank in the right column. Select the number of random questions you wish to add, and click 'Add'. The random question link will appear on the quiz question list in the left column. [[Image:Quiz Random Question select.png|thumb|center|Here we are selecting 2 random question from the "Default for New Features" category]]<br style="clear:both;">

Previewing questions

After you have added questions to the quiz, they will appear on the left. Notice the preview and edit icons next to the fixed questions. These will open a popup window. The move icons will allow you to change the order of the questions (if Quiz is setup to randomize the order, this will not have an effect).

[[Image:Quiz Questions in this quiz 197.png|thumb|center|This quiz has random questions and fixed questions. Both are drawn from 2 different question categories.]]

When you’re done, you will probably also want to preview your entire quiz by clicking on the Preview tab. This will bring you to the Quiz preview screen, but in teacher preview mode.

Setting page breaks

After you have added question to the quiz, they will appear on the left. You can manually move the page breaks, or reset the page breaks so that a standard number of questions appear on a single page.

For example, you set the quiz up to show 5 questions per page. You realize that 10 would be a better number. Change the number of questions per page from 5 to 10 and click on go. The quiz will automatically change the breaks.

For example, you want a description on the first page with 3 questions, followed by a page with 10 questions, and a last page of 6 question and a description. The quiz was set up with 5 questions per page. You should add and or move the questions and descriptions in the order you want. Then move the existing page breaks to achieve the effect you want. Make sure to turn off "shuffle questions" in the quiz setting.

After quiz has been attempted

If one or more students have taken the quiz, you will see a list of all the questions in the quiz and a notice saying that you cannot add or remove questions.

You can move questions in a different order, re grade questions, preview an individual question and click on an question edit link that will allow you to directly edit the question stored in the question bank. [[Image:Quiz_Edit_after_attempts.png|thumb|center|Quiz after 2 students have made attempts]]

TIP: You can delete all quiz attempts by students and then edit the quiz as if no students had attempted it. To do this, go to the "Info" tab, select the Attempts link. This will present a list of students and their scores. Use the check box on the left of each student and the delete button/menu item.

TIP: There are several ways to deal with bad questions in a quiz.

• Change the grade for the bad question to 0 in the quiz.
• Edit the question, changing what you will accept as a correct answer, then regrading the exam. Remember when changing a question that the next time it is used it will be as it was in the last edit. Also, regrading will only effect one quiz at a time.
• You can edit the question to explain the situation to the student and then you can set the grade for the question to zero. After you make such changes you should regrade the quiz by clicking on the Results tab and then the Regrade tab. This will change the grade for all students who have taken the quiz so far. Remember, if the question is used by another quiz, your "explanation" will appear as part of that quiz.
• You can change the grade for the bad question and then move or delete the question from your question category. The question will still appear on the quiz. Some places do not like to delete any question, but will move them to a "dead" or "bad" question category.
• When you discover a bad question in your quiz, it may effect the question bank. Remember that a final might be made up of a certain number of random questions drawn from different question categories, the same categories used in a smaller subject quiz. It can be very important do something about bad or invalid questions in a question category when the categories are use in other places.

See also

• Question bank
• Question categories
• Import questions
• Export questions
• How to create a quiz video