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Moodle Help Guide

Getting Started with Quizzes

Creating the Quiz and Initial Settings

To create a quiz activity, use the following steps:

  1. Turn editing on for your course.
  2. In the section where you'd like the quiz to appear, click the "Add an activity or resource" button.
  3. In the activity chooser menu, choose the "Quiz" option.

When you first create your quiz, you will set some options that apply to the entire quiz. (This is what the video in the top section of this page refers to as the quiz's "front page".) This step includes setting the quiz title, instructions for students, grading and timing settings.

A Moodle user tour will walk you through these options when you go to create your first quiz. If you want to see the user tour again, click the "reset user tour for this page" link at the very bottom of the Moodle page.

Remember to click "Save and Display" when you're finished with your initial quiz settings.

Creating Quiz Questions

The next step is to create questions within your quiz.

  1. Navigate to the “Questions” tab within the quiz.
  2. Click "Add" and then select "+ a new question". 
  3. In the dialogue box, select the type of question you want to add from the list, and then click "Add" at the bottom.
  4. Add your question. If you need help, click the documentation link at the bottom of your question page or explore the Question types documentation on Moodle.org.
  5. Click 'Save changes' when you have made your question.
  6. Repeat steps 2 – 5 for as many questions as you need.

If you want to, change the maximum grade for your quiz that appears in the upper right of the quiz editing page.

For more information, see the Quick Quiz Guide on Moodle.org.


Some quiz questions (like multiple choice or fill-in-the blank questions) have their answers and their associated point values entered at the very start, so Moodle can grade student responses automatically. Other types of quiz questions (like the Essay question) will be graded manually by you after students have submitted their answers.  See the Grading Quizzes page for details on how to do this grading.