How to create quizzes
This skill sheet will demonstrate how tutors can create and deploy quizzes in Moodle. The quiz activity enables tutors
to create quizzes comprising questions of various types, including multiple choice, matching, short-answer and
numerical.
You can allow the quiz to be attempted multiple times, with the questions shuffled or randomly selected from the
question bank. A time limit may also be set. Each attempt is marked automatically, with the exception of essay
questions, and the grade is recorded in the gradebook.
Quizzes may be used:
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As course exams
As mini tests for reading assignments or at the end of a topic
As exam practice using questions from past exams
To deliver immediate feedback about performance
For self-assessment
Follow these simple steps to create a forum:
1. Click the Turn editing on button (top right of the screen).
2. Select the section (topic) of the course you would like to create the quiz in. Now click the Add an activity or
resource link. The Add an activity or resource window will open.
3. Under the Activities heading, select Quiz and then click Add. This will launch the Adding a new Quiz page.
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4. Give the Quiz a Name – this is the link the students will click on from the main course page to access the
quiz.
5. Add a Description – provide an introduction to the quiz activity. You can make the description available on
the course page by selecting Display description on course page.
6. The quiz can be a complex activity as it has a host of deployment options. We will explore these in more
detail now:
Timing
These options allow you control when the quiz available to the students. You can set an opening and closing
date and time for the quiz. You can also specify a time limit in which the quiz must be completed. If this
option is select a countdown timer
is displayed in the quiz navigation
block so students are aware of the
remaining time available to
complete the quiz.
You can also control what
happens if a student fails to
submit their quiz attempt before
time expires. If the student is
actively working on the quiz at the time, then the countdown timer will always automatically submit the
attempt for them, but if they have logged out, then this setting controls what happens. If you select the
option which allows a submission grace period – you can select the number of days after the deadline that
submissions will still be accepted.
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Grade
Under Grade you have the option to select the number of allowed attempts and the grading method. When
multiple attempts are allowed, the following methods are available for calculating the final quiz grade:
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Highest grade of all attempts
Average (mean) grade of all attempts
First attempt (all other attempts are
ignored)
Last attempt (all other attempts are
ignored)
Within the grade section you can also category in
which this activity's grades are placed in the
gradebook. Please see a separate skill sheet on how to create categories in the gradebook.
Layout
Layout is how the questions will be displayed to the users. You have two options here the question order (as
shown on screen or randomly shuffled) and number of questions per page. For longer quizzes it makes sense
to stretch the quiz over several pages by limiting
the number of questions per page. When adding
questions to the quiz, page breaks will
automatically be inserted according to this
setting. However page breaks may later be moved
manually on the editing page.
Question behaviour
Again, within Question behaviour you have two
options: shuffles within questions and how
questions behave.
If ‘shuffles within questions’ is enabled, the parts
making up each question will be randomly
shuffled each time a student attempts the quiz,
provided the option is also enabled in the
question settings. This setting only applies to questions that have multiple parts, such as multiple choice or
matching questions.
The two most commonly used modes of behaviour are deferred feedback and interactive with multiple tries.
Here’s an explanation of the options:
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Deferred feedback - Students must enter an answer to each question and then submit the entire
quiz, before anything is graded or they get any feedback.
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Adaptive mode and Adaptive mode (no penalties) - Allows students to have multiple attempts at
the question before moving on to the next question. The question can adapt itself to the student's
answer, for example by giving some hints before asking the student to try again.
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Manual grading - Used for essay questions (irrespective of what the quiz is set to) but you can now
choose to have every question in the quiz manually graded, if you wish.
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Interactive mode - After submitting one answer, and reading the feedback, the student has to click a
'Try again' button before they can try a new response. Once the student has got the question right,
they can no longer change their response. Once the student has got the question wrong too many
times, they are just graded wrong (or partially correct) and get shown the feedback and can no
longer change their answer. There can be different feedback after each try the student makes.
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Immediate feedback - Similar to interactive mode in that the student can submit their response
immediately during the quiz attempt, and get it graded. However, they can only submit one
response, they cannot change it later.
Review options
These options control what information students can see when they review a quiz attempt or look at the
quiz reports.
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During the attempt settings are only relevant for some behaviours, like 'interactive with multiple
tries', which may display feedback during the attempt.
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Immediately after the attempt settings apply for the first two minutes after 'Submit all and finish' is
clicked.
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Later, while the quiz is still open settings apply after this, and before the quiz close date.
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After the quiz is closed settings apply after the quiz close date has passed. If the quiz does not have
a close date, this state is never reached.
Display
Under the display header you have the
option to ‘Show the user’s picture’, select
the number of decimal places in grades and
select the number of decimal places in the
question grades.
If the ‘Show the user’s picture’ option is
enabled, the student's name and picture
will be shown on-screen during the
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attempt, and on the review screen, making it easier to check that the student is logged in as themself in an
invigilated exam.
You can also specify the number of digits shown after the decimal point when displaying grades and the
number of digits shown after the decimal point when displaying the grades for individual questions.
Extra restrictions on attempts
These settings allow you to place certain restrictions on quiz attempts. You can specify a password meaning
a student must enter it in order to
attempt the quiz.
You can also enforce a delay
between the 1st and 2nd quiz
attempt. If enabled, a student must
wait for the specified time to elapse
before being able to attempt the
quiz a second time. You can also
apply a delay between later
attempts. If enabled, a student
must wait for the specified time to
elapse before attempting the quiz a
third time and any subsequent times.
Overall feedback
Overall feedback is text that is shown after a quiz has been attempted. By specifying additional grade
boundaries (as a percentage or as a number), the text shown can depend on the grade obtained.
Common module settings
The common module settings are available whenever you create new activities or resources. You can leave
these settings as they are unless you have created groups in you course.
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Restrict access
Again like the common module settings these settings are available whenever you create a new activity or
resource.
7. Once you are happy with the options you have chosen, click on Save
and return to course. On the course homepage you should now see
the quiz you have just created. The next step is to create your quiz
questions.
You may be interested in our additional skill sheets on Quizzes:
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How to add questions to a Quiz
Moving a question bank from one module to another
Below is an example of how the Quiz activity can be used in conjunction with the 3E element of the TEL Quality
Framework.
Enhance
Extend
Empower
Adopting technology in simple and
effective ways to actively support
students and increase their activity and
self-responsibility.
Further use of technology that facilitates
key aspects of students’ individual and
collaborative learning and assessment
through increasing their choice and
control.
Create several themed formative quizzes
drawing random questions from a
question bank. Provide students with
detailed feedback and scores.
Developed use of technology that
requires higher order individual and
collaborative learning that reflect how
knowledge is created and used in
professional environments.
Allow students to generate their own
quiz questions for a practice question
bank (requires the use of the Quiz
creator role). Create a formative quiz
drawing random questions from the
student question bank.
Create a short quiz for students to
formatively test their understanding of
the subject area.
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Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.