Frequently Asked Questions

How to create a Quiz in Moodle

The Quiz activity module allows the teacher to design and set quizzes consisting of a large variety of Question types, among them multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions. These questions are kept in the course Question bank and can be re-used within courses and between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts. Each attempt is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give feedback and/or show the correct answers.

Feedback on performance is a critical part of a learning environment and assessment is one of the most important activities in education. As educators, we can’t tell what’s going on inside the heads of students, so we need a way for them to demonstrate what they understand and what they don’t. A well-designed test, even a multiple-choice test, can give you critical information about student performance. If the feedback is rapid enough, it can also be a critical tool for students to gauge their own performance and help them become more successful.

Moodle’s quiz module has a large number of options and tools, making it extremely flexible. You can create quizzes with different question types, randomly generated quizzes from pools of questions, allow students to have repeated attempts at a question or retake quizzes multiple times, and have the computer score it all.

Follow the steps below to create a Quiz:

"Turn editing on."


Select a topic and click "Add an activity or resource" to open the Activity chooser.

add an activity or resource

Click here to learn how to add an Activity in Folder View.


Select "Quiz" and click the "Add" button.

add quiz using activity chooser


If the Activity choose is off, expand the "Add an activity" drop-down menu and select "Quiz"

add an activity drop down menu


Complete General settings.

1. Enter a Name for the Quiz.

2. Write a Description.

3. Check the box to Display the description in the course.


Configure the timing elements of the quiz.

timing options

1. Determine when the quiz should be opened and closed for participants.

2. Enable Time limit.

3. Control what happens if the Student fails to submit their quiz attempt before time expires:

   a. Open attempts are submitted automatically

   b. There is a grace period when open attempts can be submitted, but no more questions answered

   c. Attempts must be submitted before time expires, or they are not counted.

4.  Select grace period.


Choose the grading method for the quiz.

grading method

When multiple attempts are allowed, there are different ways you can use the grades to calculate the student's final grade for the quiz.

*Highest grade :The final grade is the highest (best) grade in any attempt.

*Average grade: The final grade is the average (simple mean) grade of all attempts.

*First grade: The final grade is the grade gained on the first attempt (other attempts are ignored).

*Last grade: The final grade is the grade gained on the most recent attempt only.


Define Layout settings.

1. Choose whether questions should be shuffled within the quiz attempts.

2. Choose how many questions to display per page.

3. Choose if the participant must navigate in the order of the questions or freely.


Select Question Behavior settings.

question behavior settings

1. If enabled, the parts making up each question will be randomly shuffled each time a student attempts the quiz.

2. Select on of the options for question behavior:

a. Adaptive mode: 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.

b. Adaptive mode (no penalties): The same as Adaptive mode but doesn't include penalties.

c. 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.

d. 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.

e. Interactive mode with multiple tries: 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 gotten the question right, they can no longer change their response. Once the student has gotten the question wrong too many times, they are just graded wrong (or partially correct) and the student is shown the feedback and can no longer change their answer. There can be different feedback after each try the student makes.

f. 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.

*Certainty-based marking (CBM) is available for both deferred feedback and immediate feedback. 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.

3.Decide whether each quiz attempt builds on the last.


Select Review options.

review options

These options control what information users can see when they review a quiz attempt or look at the quiz reports.You can select to display each option during the following four time frames:

a. During the attempt: Shown during the attempt.

b. Immediately after the attempt: Within two minutes of the student clicking "submit all and finish."

c. Later, while the quiz is still open: After two minutes, but before the close date (if the quiz does not have a close date, this phase never ends).

d. After the quiz is closed: Means what it says (you never get here for quizzes without a close date).


Configure how the information about the user and the user's grade will display.

display settings

1.  If enabled, the student's name and picture will be shown on-screen during the attempt, and on the review screen.

2. By using this setting you can select the number of digits that should be shown after the decimal point when displaying student scores or grades. For example choosing '0' means the displayed grades will be rounded to integers.

3. This setting specifies the number of digits shown after the decimal point when displaying the grades for individual questions.

4. If set to yes then normal blocks will be shown during quiz attempts.


Add Extra restrictions on attempts.

extra restrictions on attempts

1. Decide whether you want to require a password for the quiz.

2. Configure whether you want to require all students to be a the same network address.

3. Decide if you would like to impose delays between attempts.

4. Choose whether you want to require a secure browser. If "Full screen pop-up with some JavaScript security" is selected:

    * The quiz will only start if the student has a JavaScript-enabled web-browser

    * The quiz appears in a full screen pop up window that covers all the other windows and has no navigation controls

    * Students are prevented, as far as is possible, from using facilities like copy and paste


Create Overall grade feedback.

overal feedback

Overall feedback is text that is shown after a quiz has been attempted. The grade value of the quiz is defined later in the edit screen. By specifying additional grade boundaries (as a percentage or as a number), the text shown can depend on the grade obtained.


Define Common module & Restrict access settings.

common module and restrict access settings

1. Select  Common module settings. Click here to learn how.

2. Determine Restrict access conditions. Click here to learn how.


Select Activity completion settings.

activity completion settings

 If enabled, Activity completion is tracked, either manually or automatically, based on certain conditions. Multiple conditions may be set if desired and the activity will only be considered complete when ALL conditions are met.

1. Select Completion tracking method.

2. Select date when the Activity is expected to be completed. The date is not shown to students and is only displayed in the Activity completion report. Click here to learn how to view  the Activity completion report.


Click "Save and display."

save and display button


Click the button "Edit quiz" to set grade value and create questions.

edit quiz button


 Last updated Mon, Jun 8 2015 8:00pm

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