Create Multiple Choice Quizzes

If you are a Pro Member at The Problem Site, you have the opportunity to create your own multiple choice quizzes to use privately with your own students or children, or to share publicly with other visitors on the site.  This page provides details on how quizzes are created and structured.

Create a New Quiz

From your Pro Member Control Panel, click "Quizzes", and then select the "New" option.  You will see a form which allows you to define the characteristics of your quiz.

• Title: This should be a short but descriptive explanation of your quiz.
• Description: This is where you can provide a more detailed explanation of the purpose of your quiz.   This description will appear at the top of the quiz page before visitors click "Begin Quiz," and it provides them with an explanation of the purpose/goal of the quiz.
• Keywords: Keywords help both visitors and search engines find your quiz.  Just enter a few words and phrases (separated by commas) that describe the quiz.  This is probably the least important field in the quiz setup, so don't spend too much time deliberating over what to enter here.  You may leave it blank if you choose.
• Question Template: Do all the questions on your quiz have the same setup?  If so, you can use a Question Template to make creation of questions easier.  Suppose you were creating a quiz in which you were testing knowledge of state capital names.  Each question would look like this: "What is the capital of _____?", with a different state name filling in the blank for each question.  Then your question template would look like this: "What is the capital of [QUESTION]?".  Now, when you are creating your questions, you only need to enter "California" as the question, and the site will convert this into "What is the capital of California?"  In most cases the Question Template is left blank.  Please note that if you have even one question that does not conform to the pattern, you can not use the Question Template. 
• Quiz Type: You can create quizzes in which both questions and answers are text, quizzes in which both questions and answers are pictures, or you can create quizzes which have picture questions and text answers, or vice-versa.
• Use Answer Pool: If you choose to use the answer pool, the site will automatically fill in the incorrect answers for each question by randomly selecting answers from other questions in your quiz.  Thus, using the example of the state capital quiz, if one question is "What is the capital of Maine?" with an answer of "Augusta," using the answer pool allows the site to use "Augusta" as one of the incorrect answers for the question "What is the capital of California?"  Only use the answer pool if all of your questions are designed in such a way that correct answers for each question are reasonable possibilities for all the other questions.  If you don't use the answer pool, you are responsible to create all the incorrect answers for each question.

Once you've filled in all this information, click "Submit."  Your quiz will be created (although at this point it will be a blank quiz, with no questions).  Next you will see a screen that allows you to generate your questions.

Add Quiz Questions

The appearance of the input form for questions will vary depending on the quiz type you have selected (images or text).

If you have selected "image" for either question or answer type, you will see a file selection box, which allows you to browse to images on your computer and upload them to your quiz.  Note that we restrict the size of images allowed (the current limit is 100K), so if your images are larger than that, you will need to scale them down before uploading them.  Once you have uploaded an image a thumbnail of your image will appear on the page, along with a link to "Remove picture." Click this link if you decide you don't want an image in that slot.  You can also overwrite the image with a different image by using the file upload button again.

If you have selected "text" for either question or answer type, you will see a text box for data entry.  Simply type the question/answer in the box.  Remember that if you've used a "Question Template", you don't need to type the entire question - just the part that's different for each question.

There are four slots for answers.  The first slot must be the correct answer; the other three slots are for incorrect answers.  You must supply a correct answer, and you can enter one, two or three incorrect answers.  If you enter one incorrect answer, and are not using the answer pool, the question will appear with only two possible answers to choose from.  If you enter one incorrect answer, and are using the answer pool, the site will automatically fill in the remaining incorrect slots with answers from other questions.

If you are using the answer pool, you don't need to enter any incorrect answers.

Once you have finished entering your question data, you can click "Submit," which will return you to the list of questions, or you can click "Submit and Add Another," which will return you to the quiz question form so you can add another question.

Preview Your Quiz

Once you have finished adding questions to your quiz, return to the "Quizzes" page in your Pro Control Panel, and click the checkbox next to your quiz name, and then select "Preview" from the commands below.  This will allow you to try out your quiz to make sure it looks the way you want it to.  If it doesn't, go back and modify the quiz/question setup until you're satisfied with the quiz.  You should carefully review your quiz before publishing it.

Publication

Click here for information about publishing your quiz once it's complete.

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