Creating a Quiz

This article refers to using the Quiz activity within MyPlace on your class site.


Quiz activities are a useful tool for testing student knowledge and application, and can offer facilities such as automated marking.

This article contains information on:

  • Creating a Quiz (edit settings)
  • Adding Questions
  • The Question Screen


Assessment by quiz

If you will be using your quizzes for assessment please check /wiki/spaces/MS/pages/7275170.

1) Once editing has been turned on the class site. You can click Add an Activity or Resource on the page and choose Quiz activity from the list.

Click on any image below to enlarge

2) In the general setting name the Quiz (mandatory setting) and add a description. In this setting you can also choose whether to display the description on the course (class) page. 


3) - Set when the Quiz is open and closed, What the time limit is for students to complete the Quiz, How the Quiz reacts to the Timer reaching Zero and How long the grace period for submissions after Quiz expiry. 


If a Time limit is set, It is not possible to stop the timer and start it again. Myplace cannot tell the difference between legitimate reasons for doing this (such as a fire alarm requiring evacuation of the test room) or a student simply using time going to another browser and googling the answers. Nor can Myplace tell if the connection has been lost, although the student does now get a warning.

4) Grade - Set the grade category (for use with the Gradebook), Set the number of attempts allowed and the grading method. The grading method is for when multiple attempts are allowed. When this is the case, the following methods are available for calculating the final quiz grade:

  • 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)


5) Layout - There are 3 settings for layout:

  • Question order as show on the edit screen OR in a random order
  • New page - control the number of questions on each page
  • Navigation method - allow the students to navigate freely or make the quiz strictly sequential


6) Question Behaviour - There are 3 settings for Question behaviour:

  • 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.
  • How questions behave - The 2 most common behaviours are:
    • Deferred feedback - Students enter an answer to each question and then submit the entire quiz, before anything is graded or they get any feedback
    • Interactive with multiple tries - Students submit each question as they go along to get immediate feedback, and if they do not get it right immediately, have another try for fewer marks
    • See Questions Behaviours  for more information on the other options
  • Each attempt builds on the last - If multiple attempts are allowed and this setting is enabled, each new quiz attempt will contain the results of the previous attempt. This allows a quiz to be completed over several attempts


7) Review Options controls what information students can see when they review a quiz attempt or look at the quiz reports.


  • During the attempt - settings are only relevant for some behaviours, like 'interactive with multiple tries', which may display feedback during the attempt
  • Immediately after the attempt - settings apply for the first two minutes after 'Submit all and finish' is clicked.
  • Later, while the quiz is still open - settings apply after this, and before the quiz close date
  • 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

See Review Options for further details on this setting.

8) You can set 4 elements within the  Appearance settings:

  • Show the user 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
  • Decimal places in grades - 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 (5 decimal places by default)
  • Decimal places in question grades - Specifies the number of digits shown after the decimal point when displaying the grades for individual questions
  • Show blocks during quiz attempts - If set to yes then normal blocks will be shown during quiz attempts


9) Extra Restrictions on Attempts - Set a password, specific network address and enforce a delay between student attempts at Quiz. 


10) 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 popup 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

11) 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) See Common module Settings for more information on these settings. Results can be filtered by group here.

13) See Restrict access and Activity completion Settings for more information on these settings.

14) See Creating Quiz Questions  for a detailed explanation of how to add questions and control how the questions behave in a quiz.




Feedback and hints are included under the relevant settings if these features are required (they are not compulsory)

These include combined feedback options, and, if multiple attempts are enabled, what the grade penalty will be for each incorrect answer.