Moodle: Quiz - Basic Guide

Summary

A guide to setting up a Moodle quiz including a run-down of common question types

Body

Contents 

Adding a Quiz Activity 

To add a quiz activity to your Moodle course page: 

  • Enable Edit mode via the top bar of your course page 
  • Click "Add an activity or resource" 
  • Find and select Quiz 
    • Tip: star this activity for easier access in the future
  • Title your quiz in the Name text box 
  • Configure the settings (see below)
  • Click the Save and display button

Important set-up settings  

  • Timing 
    • Open the quiz: Set an opening date/time for the quiz 
    • Close the quiz: Set a closing date/time for the quiz 
    • Time limit: Enable and set a time duration limit for each quiz attempt 
  • Grade 
    • Grade category: Sets the category in the gradebook in which the quiz is displayed
    • Attempts allowed: Set how many times a student can take the quiz 
  • Question behavior 
    • How questions behave (the most common options are listed below) 
      • Adaptive mode: Students can check their answers during the quiz with a score penalty if they are incorrect 
        • Picking Adaptive mode (no penalties) removes the score penalty 
      • Deferred feedback: Students complete and submit the quiz before receiving a grade/feedback, like a standard quiz 
      • Immediate feedback: Students receive a grade for each question immediately after submitting an answer 
      • Manually graded: You manually grade each question in the quiz including those that would otherwise be automatically scored 
      • Each attempt builds on the last: Enable whether students' responses from a previous attempt show up on the current attempt 
  • Review options
    • These options set the visibility for certain information at different points in the quiz:
      • During the attempt: After each question is attempted. This mode is only applicable for Interactive and Adaptive question behaviors 
      • Immediately after the attempt: The two minutes after the student clicks Submit all and finish
      • Later, while the quiz is still open: After the two minutes pass, and before the quiz closes
      • After the quiz is closed: Only applicable if the quiz has a close date
  • You may want to un-check The attempt for review Immediately after the attempt and Later, while the quiz is still open. This will prevent students from seeing and sharing quiz questions after they have completed the quiz. 

After editing these settings, click either Save and return to course or Save changes. 

Navigating to quiz editing menu 

To get to the Edit quiz menu: 

  • Click on the quiz activity on the course page 
  • Click on the ⋮ menu in the top right 
  • Select "Edit quiz" 

Navigating to Quiz Editing Menu:  

  • Select the Questions tab from the menu at the top of the page 
  • Alternatively, if you have not yet added any questions to your quiz, there will be an "Edit quiz" button on the quiz page that will lead to the same menu. 

Creating questions 

You can create a question either in the quiz or in the question bank.  

Creating questions through the quiz 

  • Click on the quiz activity, then Questions
  • On the bottom right of the shaded box (representing a page), click Add > a new question
  • Choose the question type, then click the Add button
  • At the top of the page, pick a category from the dropdown menu
  • Finish creating the question and click either:
    • Save changes, which will bring you back to the "Edit quiz" screen
    • Save changes and continue editing, which will keep you on the question editing screen

Creating questions through the question bank 

  • From course page, click More > Question bank
    • Alternatively, click on the quiz activity, then Question bank
  • Click the Create new question... box. Choose a question type, then click the blue Add button. 
  • At the top of the page, pick a category from the dropdown menu 
  • Finish creating the question and click either: 
    • Save changes, which will bring you back to the question bank 
    • Save changes and continue editing, which will keep you on the question editing screen 

For more information about the question bank, please refer to Moodle: Quiz - Question Bank

Question Types 

Description 

A description is not a question but instead is a space to insert information. In addition to text, you can add a variety of media to these boxes including videos (Panopto, YouTube), images, and audio. 

Multiple Choice 

Multiple Choice questions prompt students to pick one or more answers to a question. 

Important settings: 

  • One or multiple answers?: Set whether students can select more than one choice. 
  • Answers: Write the text for each choice and assign a grade to each choice 
    • Note: The grades for all responses combined must equal 100% 

True or False 

True False questions are essentially Multiple Choice questions with two choices: True and False. 

Important settings: 

  • Correct answer: Choose whether the assertion in the question text is true or false 

Matching 

Matching questions have students match a set of questions to a set of answers by choosing from a drop down list of responses for each question. 

Important settings: 

  • Answers: Input your question-answer pairs in the Question and Answer boxes. 
    • You can add an extra false answer by writing the false answer in the answer box without any question. 

Short Answer 

Short Answer questions ask for a word or a short phrase as an answer. 

Important settings

  • Answers: Write in all acceptable forms of the correct answer as different answers and set the grade to 100% for each. 
    • Ex: Question - Name one of the three main rock classifications. 
      • Answer 1: Igneous 
      • Answer 2: Sedimentary 
      • Answer 3: Metamorphic 

Essay 

Essay questions are manually graded and accept typed-out student responses. 

Important settings: 

  • Allow attachments: Choose whether students can add attachments to their text and if so, how many. 
  • Grader information: If you have graders in your class, you may include instructions for them in this text box. 

Numerical 

Numerical questions are like short answers except that they are math-centered with the ability to account for error and units. 

Important settings: 

  • Answers: Write the answers (numbers only) in the answer boxes and choose appropriate error values. 
  • Unit handling: In this section, you can choose whether or not to enable units and how to handle them 
    • Unit handling (drop-down menu): 
      • "Units are not used at all...": Only the numerical value of the response will be graded. Any unit in the response will be ignored. 
      • "Units are optional...": Units included in the response will be converted to a default unit, defined as Unit 1 in the Units section. Responses without units will be assumed to be of Unit 1. 
        • If this is selected, choose the position of the unit under Units go and set up your units in the Units section. 
        • Students will need to type in their units with this option, so you may want to provide a list of acceptable units in the question text. 
      • "The unit must be given...": Units must be included in the response, and there is a penalty for using the wrong unit in the response. This option uses the same unit conversion as the previous option. 
  • Units: Define which units will be used in the question and their multiplicative relationship with each other 
    • Unit 1 is the default unit for the question, and will always have a multiplier of 1. 
    • Other units that you add will have multipliers in relation to Unit 1 
    • An example table of units: 

Unit # 

Name 

Multiplier 

Unit 1 

Unit 2 

km 

.001 

Unit 3 

mm 

1000 

 

Calculated 

Calculated questions are math questions that, like numerical questions, allow for variation in the values in the question by drawing from a dataset.

Important settings: 

There are three separate pages when you are creating/editing a Calculated question: 

Page 1: Creating/Editing a Calculated question 

  • Question text: Write out the question while naming and enclosing your variables (AKA wild cards) in curly brackets. 
    • Ex: A rectangle has a base of {base} and a height of {height}. What is the perimeter? 
  • Answers: Write a formula for the answer including the variables defined in the question. 
    • You can use operations such as: +, -, /, * 
    • Ex: 2*{base} + 2*{height} 
  • Unit/Unit handling: Works the same as in Numerical questions 

Page 2: Choose wildcards dataset properties 

This page allows you to use shared datasets within a category and synchronize the values with different quiz questions. To keep it simple for now, leave these settings as default and click "Next page". 

Page 3: Edit the wildcards datasets 

On this page, you can add to/edit the sets of possible values for your variables. Each grouping of values is called a set

  • Item to add: This section lists all your variables and lets you change the parameters for each, such as the range of values and the decimal places 
  • Add: Add new sets to the question 
  • Delete: Remove sets from the question 
  • Set #: Your sets will be listed here. You can change the amount of displayed sets with the drop-down menu. 
    • If you want to manually edit a set: 
    • Type in new values in the boxes of the displayed set 
      • Click "Display" to save 

 

Drag and Drop 

There are three different types of drag and drop question on Moodle: into text, onto image, and matching.  

Important settings: 

  • Drag and drop Into text questions use a number contained by double brackets - [[1]] - as a placeholder for the correct word in the question text. 
    • Choices: Write the correct answer for each placeholder in its own box. 
      • Grouped choices appear as color-coded to students and cannot be dropped into different-colored slots. 
  • Drag and drop onto image questions have students drag labels/images to associated areas on a background image. 
    • Preview: Upload a background image and click "Refresh preview" 
    • Draggable items: Use either text labels or images as answers to drag onto the image 
      • These can be grouped as well 
    • Drop zones: Assign each draggable item to a drop zone (excluding incorrect items), then go back to the Preview section and place the drop zones on the image. 
  • Drag and drop matching: Refer to Matching questions 

Quizzes in Panopto 

For information on quizzes in Panopto, please watch the following videos: 

Learn more 

For more information about Moodle quizzes, please visit the Quizzing section of the Moodle Micro-Skill Tutorials course

Questions? 

If you need further assistance or have specific questions that aren't covered in this article, please don't hesitate to reach out for personalized support by submitting a Moodle Support ticket

Acknowledgement  

Created by Aleksander Prasolov '24, Tue 10/12/21. Last modified by Fiona Ibrahim '24, Mon 10/7/24. 

 

 

Details

Details

Article ID: 138598
Created
Tue 10/12/21 12:16 PM
Modified
Mon 10/14/24 4:44 PM

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