Create Quizzes in Moodle

Quizzes in Moodle can help assess student learning. They can be used as a formative exercise that includes feedback and multiple attempts or a summative test with a strict time limit and shuffled questions. 

Quick video tutorials

View a very short walkthrough of making a quiz in Moodle. View more videos in the LinkedIn collection here. 

Helpful tips

• Read more about ways to reduce academic dishonesty in Moodle. 
• Have a student who has accommodations? Review how to override the settings and give extended time to specific students. 
• Review the other Quiz tutorials for more information. 

1.) In the top-left side of the header, click the green pencil icon to turn editing on

2.) Click the 'Add an activity or resource' link in the section that you would like to build your quiz in

3.) Within the activity or resource window, select 'Quiz' (1) and click 'Add' (2)

• The right-half of the Activity Chooser is used to display a description of any Activity or Resource you select from the list on the left-hand side. If you scroll down to the bottom of that description, you will usually find a link to a Wiki article about that Activity or Resource.

4.) Enter the General information for your Quiz

1. Enter a name for the Quiz.
2. It is optional if you want to enter a description for the Quiz.
3. If you check the box, the description will display on the main course page.

5.) Enter the Timing for the Quiz

1. Open the quiz: If you want to open the Quiz at a certain date and time, check the box next to "Enable" and select the date and time.
2. Close the quiz: If you want the Quiz to close on a certain date and time, check the box next to "Enable" and select the date and time.
3. Time limit: If you want to set a time limit for the Quiz, check the "Enable" box and enter the time limit.
4. When time expires: This setting controls what happens if the 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.
5. Submission grace period: If what to do when time expires is set to 'There is a grace period when open attempts can be submitted, but no more questions answered', the amount of extra time that is allowed.

6.) Enter the Grade information for the Quiz

1. Grade category: This setting controls the category in which this activity's grades are placed in the gradebook.
2. Grade to pass: Decide how many attempts students will have to take the Quiz.
3. Attempts allowed: When multiple attempts are allowed, the following methods are available for calculating the final quiz grade:
   1. Highest grade of all attempts
   2. Average (mean) grade of all attempts
   3. First attempt (all other attempts are ignored)
   4. Last attempt (all other attempts are ignored)

7.) Enter the Layout and Question Behavior for the Quiz

1. New Page: The question order can either be as it is shown on the edit screen or questions can be shuffled randomly.
2. Navigation method: 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.
3. Shuffle within questions: If 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.
4. How questions behave:
   1. 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.
   2. Adaptive mode and Adaptive mode (no penalties) - Allows students to have multiple attempts at the question before moving on to the next question.
   3. 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.
   4. 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.
   5. Deferred feedback or Immediate feedback with Certainty-based marking (CBM) - With CBM, the student does not only answer the question, but they also indicate how sure they are they got the question right. The grading is adjusted by the choice of certainty, so that students have to reflect honestly on their own level of knowledge in order to get the best mark. See the See Also section below for an example quiz using CBM and a blog post explaining the philosophy.

8.) Choose the Review Options for the Quiz

• We highly suggest leaving these options at the default. To learn more information about the options, click on the ?.

9.) Enter the display settings for the quiz

1. Show the user's picture: If enabled, the student's name and picture will be shown on-screen during the attempt, and on the review screen, making it easier to check that the student is logged in as themself in an invigilated (proctored) exam.
2. Decimal places in grades: This setting specifies the number of digits shown after the decimal point when displaying grades. It only affects the display of grades, not the grades stored in the database, nor the internal calculations, which are carried out to full accuracy.
3. Decimal places in question grades: This setting specifies the number of digits shown after the decimal point when displaying the grades for individual questions.
4. Show blocks during quiz attempts: If set to yes, then normal blocks will be shown during quiz attempts.

10.) Enter optional extra restrictions on the quiz

• If you do not want any extra restrictions, you can skip this section.

From Moodle:

1. Require password: If a password is specified, a student must enter it in, to attempt the quiz.
2. Require network address: Quiz access may be restricted to particular subnets on the LAN or Internet by specifying a comma-separated list of partial or full IP address numbers. This can be useful for a proctored quiz, to ensure that only people in a certain location can access the quiz.
3. Enforce delay between 1st and 2nd attempts: If enabled, a student must wait for the specified time to elapse before being able to attempt the quiz a second time.
4. Enforce 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.
5. Browser security: If 'Full screen pop-up with some JavaScript security' is selected:
   1. The quiz will only start if the student has a Java-Script enabled web browswer.
   2. The quiz appears in a full screen pop up window that covers all the other windows and has no navigation controls
   3. Students are prevented, as far as it is possible, from using facilities like copy and paste.
6. Allow quiz to be attempted offline using the mobile app: If enabled a mobile app user can download the quiz and attempt it offline.

• It is not possible for a quiz to be attempted offline if it has a time limit, or requires a network address, or uses any question behavior other than deferred feedback.

11.) Enter optional Overall Feedback for the Quiz

• 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.

12.) Scroll to the bottom and click 'Save and display'

13.) After you have entered the settings for the Quiz, you are ready to add questions

• Click the "Edit quiz" button to add questions.
• Continue learning about Quizzes in Moodle by reading Quiz Lesson 2 - Adding Questions into a Quiz in Moodle.