Multiple Choice Quizzes

Moodle for Course Creators
by Paul Zarucki, Electronic Equipments Ltd., January 2006.

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Here we show how to create a set of multiple choice quizzes using Moodle, the on-line learning system.

Remember the Help Buttons!
Many of the items on Moodle pages have help buttons (marked "?") which provide useful explanations. It is easy to forget they are there but they often tell you what you need to know when you are stuck or can't remember something.

Logging in
This tutorial will only work if your Moodle account provides the necessary teacher or administrator privileges.

Moodle Version

These recipes are written for Moodle 1.4.4. If your Moodle system's version is different some details might have changed but the general principles will remain the same.

Updates

Revisions to this tutorial will be made from time to time. Last revised on 2006.01.31.

Introduction

In this tutorial we shall create a set of multi-choice quizzes along with an associated course and course category. If you are starting from scratch with a new Moodle system or have not yet created a course and want to set up some multi-choice questions then this tutorial is for you.

Rather than set out every step in detail, I shall refer to the Moodle Recipes wherever possible, so it will help to have a copy of these handy while working through the tutorial.

Create a new Course Category

The subject is Astronomy. Since we don't yet have a category for courses in this field, we must add a new category. Follow the recipe Adding a New Course Category and create a new category with the name Astronomy.

Create a new Course

Having created the course category, we can now add a course to it. Follow the recipe Creating a Course. Enter the following information into the appropriate boxes on the Edit course settings page:

Full name: Astronomy 101
Short name: AS101
Summary: A brief introduction to astronomy.
Format: Topics format
Number of weeks/topics: 1
Show grades: choose Yes if you want students to see their results immediately, No otherwise.

The other settings can be ignored (although you are free to alter them and experiment). After entering the course settings, choose yourself (and other people as well if you wish) as a Teacher for the course then follow the link AS101 to the course page as explained in the recipe.

Create a Quiz

You should now be looking at the course page, with the course title in the top left and a panel labeled "1" in the centre column of the page. This is the panel for Topic 1. Since we set the number of topics to 1 when creating the course, it is the only topic in this course.

Add a quiz to Topic 1 by following the recipe Creating a Quiz, up to the point where you reach the Editing quiz page (step 6), and enter the following settings:

Name: The Planets
Introduction: Basic facts about the planets of our solar system.
Close the quiz: set the year to next year.
Maximum grade: 30

The other settings can be ignored (although you are free to alter them and experiment). After entering the quiz settings and clicking the Continue button you are taken to the Editing quiz page which lets you add questions to the quiz.

Create a Question Category

Before entering the questions, let's create a category for them. Follow the recipe Adding a new Question Category and enter the following settings:

Category: AS101-planets
Category info: Basic questions about the planets

Enter the Questions

Now we can enter the questions using the recipe Adding new Questions - Multi-Choice. Enter the three questions shown below. They are all multi-choice questions. The first two questions require only one answer while the third question requires two correct choices to be made.

Question name: Largest planet

Question: Which of these planets is the largest?

One or multiple answers: One answer only

Choice 1: Earth	grade: None
Choice 2: Jupiter	grade: 100%
Choice 3: Mars	grade: None
Choice 4: Saturn	grade: None

Question name: Nearest to sun

Question: Which of these planets is nearest the sun?

One or multiple answers: One answer only

Choice 1: Earth	grade: None
Choice 2: Jupiter	grade: None
Choice 3: Venus	grade: 100%
Choice 4: Mars	grade: None

Question name: Gas giants

Question: Which two of these planets are gas giants?

One or multiple answers: Multiple answers

Choice 1: Earth	grade: None
Choice 2: Jupiter	grade: 50%
Choice 3: Venus	grade: None
Choice 4: Saturn	grade: 50%

Preview the Questions

Now that we have entered the questions, we can give them a dry run using the preview facility. The questions are listed in the lower right of the Editing quiz page. To preview a question, click the preview icon (like a magnifying glass) to the right of the question. The question opens in a separate preview window. Enter your answer and click the Check button. You mark will be shown and the correct answer highlighted. Close the preview when you have finished. If you discover a mistake in a question, you can edit the question by clicking the edit icon (like a hand holding a pen) near to the preview icon.

Add the Questions to the Quiz

The questions have been entered and are stored in a database of questions available for use in quizzes. The next step is to select those questions which are to be used in the quiz. We can select all or just some of the questions. Alternatively, we can instruct Moodle to pick a number of questions at random each time the quiz is run.

Let's use all of the questions. At this point we could return to the recipe Creating a Quiz and continue where we left off (step 7). The recipe is complicated by the fact that it deals with all three ways of selecting questions. Rather than return to the recipe, therefore, simply do the following:

Click the Select all button.
Click the Add selected to quiz button.

Voila! The left side of the page now shows three questions in the quiz. If you want to change the order of the questions, use the up/down arrows in the Order column. The Grade column lets you change the grade of each question in case some questions are worth more than others or if you want them to add to a total grade which is more than 3.

Save the Quiz

Click the Save this whole quiz button.

Click the Quizzes link near the top left of the page (in the line below the title). This takes you to the Quizzes page for the course AS101. The table shows all of the quizzes in this course (just the one so far). You can also get to this page from the course page (see below).

Return to the Course

Click the AS101 link near the top left of the page (in the line below the title). This takes you to the course page for AS101. Topic 1 now contains the quiz which you added. If you want to add more quizzes to Topic 1, just repeat the above procedure starting at Create a Quiz.

Administering Quizzes

If you look at the course page for AS101, in the section titled Activities you can now see an item labeled Quizzes. This item is only present when the course contains one or more quizzes, which is why we couldn't see it before. Click on Quizzes. This takes you to the Quizzes page for AS101.

On the Quizzes page is a list of quizzes used in this course showing the closing date and number of attempts for each. Clicking a quiz name takes you to the admin page for the quiz. From here you can attempt the quiz if you wish to try it out. You can also view the results and statistics for all attempts of this quiz using the link near the top right of the page.

Feedback and comments to paul

electronic-equipments.co.uk are welcome.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.