Add and customise a Quiz
Moodle Quiz can be used as a tool to assess students’ learning or as an assessment for learning activity. This guide covers how to set up a quiz in your Moodle unit.
Add a Quiz
- Turn editing on.

- In the topic where you want to add a resource or activity, click +Add an activity or resource.

- Select Quiz from the activities list.
- Expand the accordion below to learn about each of the settings used to customise your quiz. Once you have finished setting up your quiz, click Save and display.
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In the General section give your quiz a name and description, such as learning goals or special instructions.
Note
Students can apply for short extensions or special consideration for quizzes via an online form. Ensure that the Name for your Moodle quiz is accurate and meaningful, as the online form draws on this data from your Moodle unit.
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In the Timing section:
- Click Enable, and adjust the Open the quiz and Close the quiz fields as required.
- In the Close the quiz field, you can select 11:55PM (local time), which aligns with the Monash standard assessment time. For more information, see below.
- Set a time limit for the quiz if required. Click Enable and select the Time limit.
- If you choose to enable Time limit, you can use When time expires to control how the quiz behaves at the end of the set time. A timer will be displayed on-screen for students.
- If you choose to enable Submission grace period, you can also select the length of grace period.
Note
Making ANY edit to an existing quiz that uses a non-standard submission time without valid reason will require you to review the quiz close time to ensure it's correct. If the quiz is a non-standard time and does not have a valid reason selected (chief examiner only) it will automatically revert to the default of 23:55 (local time) when a change is made.
Monash standard assessment times
Monash assessments should be set to 11:55PM local time unless there is a valid reason where it might be necessary to vary these standard times (see below).
Reasons for varying submission times Assessment submission times can only be varied by the Chief Examiner if the reason aligns with one of these conditions:
- The assessment is a Pre/in/post class activity: This is when submission of work is due before, during, or after a class has taken place and will use an associated submission time.
- The assessment is a departmental exam: Departmental exam activities are scheduled exams where a student has an allocated amount of time to complete a task and the submission time may fall outside the standard time.
- Non-assessed activities: These activities have no weight (do not contribute to unit marks) or are for a non-coursework unit and the submission time is used to support student learning.
- International campus cohorts: This is when students from multiple campuses (e.g. Australia and Malaysia) in the same Moodle site and the submission time may differ to accommodate local times equivalent to 11.55pm.
Use International campus cohorts only when a Moodle unit includes Moodle sets submission times based on the time zone of the staff member configuring the activity. If you're based in Australia, the time will default to Australian time—even for students on another campus. To ensure students at international campuses see a locally relevant time, manually override the submission time and set it to the standard local time.
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In the Grade section:
- Set the Grade to pass
- Set allowed number of attempts for the quiz with Attempts allowed.
- If you enable multiple attempts, the Grading method option allows you to choose which of the attempts will be graded e.g. Highest, average, etc.
- By default Moodle sets the Maximum grade to 100.00 points even if the total of all individual questions is higher. You can change the maximum grade on the quiz questions page.
Note
Students can apply for short extensions or special consideration for assignments and quizzes via an online form. Ensure that the number of Attempts allowed for your quiz is correct, as the online form draws on this data from your Moodle unit.
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In the Layout section:
- Use New page to select the number of questions displayed on each page.
- Click Show more to select the Navigation method which will determine how students will navigate through the quiz.
- Sequential: Questions will appear in the order they are displayed in on the Edit quiz page.
- Free: Students can skip questions and attempt them in any order by choosing.
To restrict students from attempting a question until another question has been attempted first.
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In the Question behaviour section, you can:
- Shuffle within questions: Randomise the order that multiple choice responses are displayed in for each attempt.
- How questions behave: Control how students receive feedback and interact with quiz questions:
- Adaptive mode or Adaptive mode (no penalties): Allows students to attempt a question multiple times before moving on. The question will adapt to the student's answer, for example, a hint will be provided.
- Deferred feedback: Feedback will be given only once all questions have been answered and quiz has been submitted.
- Immediate feedback: Feedback will be given after each question is submitted.
- Interactive with multiple tries: Similar to Adaptive mode, after submitting an answer and receiving feedback, the student must click Try again. Once the correct answer is chosen, it can no longer be changed. After a set number of incorrect attempts, graded partially correct). Different feedback can be given after each student's attempt.
- Deferred feedback with CBM or Immediate feedback with CBM: Allows certainty-based marking which requires students to indicate their surety of an answer e.g. not very sure, fairly sure etc. Their grading is then adjusted based on this.
- Allow redo within an attempt: This option becomes available if Immediate feedback or Interactive with multiple tries is selected in How questions behave.
- Each attempt builds on the last: This option becomes available if Attempts allowed in the Grades section are set to more than one.
- If Yes, students are allowed to answer questions previously answered incorrectly. Note: Although students can attempt the quiz multiple times, they must answer the individual questions within the quiz once.
- If No, students must answer all questions each time they attempt the quiz.
If you want students to learn from the feedback i.e. students can check quiz questions and attempt the quiz multiple times.
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In the Review options section, you can control what information students can see when they review a quiz attempt or look at the quiz reports:
- During the attempt: This is only relevant for some behaviours, like interactive with multiple tries, which may display feedback during the attempt.
- Immediately after the attempt: The first two minutes after Submit all and finish is clicked.
- Later, while the quiz is still open: After the first two minutes once Submit all and finish is clicked and before the quiz closing date.
- After the quiz is closed: After the quiz closing date. If the quiz does not have a closing date, this state is never reached.
Note
If the "Mark" and "Maximum mark" options are disabled, grades for the quiz will not be visible for students and you will not have the options to show the grade in the Gradebook setup or Grader report (the show grade option will not visible at cohort level and will be greyed out individual students).
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In the Safe Exam Browser section, you can set whether students can only attempt the quiz using the Safe Exam Browser. The Safe Exam Browser (SEB) is a standalone web browser environment to carry out e-assessments safely. The software turns any computer temporarily into a secure workstation. It controls access to resources like system functions, other websites and applications and prevents unauthorised resources being used during an exam.
Note
SEB is NOT supported by eSolutions for use in regular Moodle Quizzes. It is recommended that you use the Monash eAssessment platform for in-semester assessment (which can be set up to send results directly to your Moodle Gradebook) rather than using the SEB in a regular Moodle Quiz. If you do choose to use SEB in a regular Moodle quiz, you will be responsible for monitoring and handling any difficulties.
Further resources
For Require the use of Safe Exam Browser, the available options are:
- No: Safe Exam Browser is not required to attempt the quiz.
- Yes – Configure manually: No template for the configuration of Safe Exam Browser will be used. You can configure Safe Exam Browser manually.
- Yes – Upload my own config: You can upload your own Safe Exam Browser configuration file. All manual settings and the use of templates will be disabled.
- Yes – Use SEB client config: No configurations of Safe Exam Browser are on Moodle side. The quiz can be attempted with any configuration of Safe Exam Browser. You hand the Safe Exam Browser config file over to students by other means, like you did with Moodle ≤ 3.8.
If set to Yes – Configure manually, Yes – Upload my own config or Yes – Use SEB client config, the following settings become available:
- Show Safe Exam Browser download button - Set whether a button for Safe Exam Browser download will be shown on the quiz start page.
If set to Yes – Configure manually, the following settings become available:
- Show Exit Safe Exam Browser button, configured with this quit link - In the according field you can enter a link to quit Safe Exam Browser. It will be used on an "Exit Safe Exam Browser" button on the page that appears after the exam is submitted. Clicking the button or a link to the same URL placed wherever you want to put it, it is possible to quit Safe Exam Browser without having to enter a quit password. If the field is left empty, then the "Exit Safe Exam Browser" button does not appear and there is no link set to quit Safe Exam Browser.
- Ask user to confirm quitting - If enabled, users have to confirm quitting of Safe Exam Browser when a quit link is detected. Note this setting does just affect quitting with the quit link and doesn't affect quitting with the "Quit" button, Ctrl-Q or the close button in the main browser window.
- Enable quitting of SEB - Set whether users can quit Safe Exam Browser with the "Quit" button in the Safe Exam Browser taskbar or by pressing the keys Ctrl-Q or by clicking the main browser window close button.
- Quit password - Here, it is possible to provide a password which is prompted when users try to quit Safe Exam Browser with the "Quit" button, Ctrl-Q or the close button in the main browser window. If no quit password is set, then Safe Exam Browser just prompts "Are you sure you want to quit Safe Exam Browser?".
- Enable reload in exam - Used to allowing page reload during a quiz (reload button in Safe Exam Browser taskbar, browser toolbar, iOS side slider menu, keyboard shortcut F5/cmd+R). Offline caching might break when the user tries to reload a page without internet connection.
- Show SEB task bar - Set whether users are shown the Safe Exam Browser taskbar. If Show SEB task bar is set to Yes, additional settings become available:
- Show reload button - Set whether users are shown the reload user interface element in the task bar bottom right corner.
- Show time - Set whether users are shown an element in the task bar with the current time.
- Show keyboard layout - Set whether users are shown an element in the task bar to choose the keyboard layout.
- Show Wi-Fi control - Set whether users are shown an element in the taskbar to choose the Wi-Fi.
- Enable audio controls - Set whether users are shown an element in the taskbar to change the audio volume.
- Mute on startup - Set whether the audio volume is initially mute when Safe Exam Browser launches. Can only be set Show SEB task bar and Enable audio controls is set to Yes.
- Enable spell checking - Set whether spell checking is enabled in Safe Exam Browser.
- Enable URL filtering - Set whether URL filtering is enabled in Safe Exam Browser, if Enable URL filtering is set to Yes, additional settings become available.
- Filter also embedded content - Set whether URL filtering applies to embedded content, too, in Safe Exam Browser. Can only be set if Enable URL filtering is set to Yes.
- Expressions allowed - Insert a set of simple expressions URL are tested against and allowed for accessing during an exam.
- Regex allowed - Insert a set of regular expressions URL are tested against and allowed for accessing during an exam.
- Expressions blocked - Insert a set of simple expressions URL are tested against and blocked for accessing during an exam.
- Regex blocked - Insert a set of regular expressions URL are tested against and blocked for accessing during an exam.
If set to "Yes – Upload my own config" or "Yes – Use SEB client config, the following settings become available:
- Allowed browser exam keys - Insert allowed Browser Exam Keys for versions of Safe Exam Browser that are permitted to access this quiz. If no keys are entered, then Moodle does not check Browser Exam Keys.
Note
When using the option "Yes – Upload my own config", you have to re-download the configuration file from the attempt quiz page (using the button "Download Configuration") and use that file to calculate the Browser Exam Key in each SEB version you want to allow for this quiz. These re-calculated Browser Exam Keys you need to copy-paste into the "Allowed browser exam keys" field (each key on a new line).
The reason for this is that Moodle changes the Start URL setting value and formatting of the configuration file you initially uploaded to the quiz settings, therefore the Browser Exam Key changes. This doesn't apply when using the option "Yes – Use SEB client config". Remember that using the Config Key, which Moodle automatically calculates, is much easier.
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You can choose to add extra restrictions to students attempting your quiz.
Require password: You can set a password that students must enter before making an attempt. You could for example only give this password out at the start of a class.
Require network address: We do not recommend restricting Moodle quizzes to specific IP addresses as a security measure. While this approach may seem like a way to ensure students are on campus, it can create unnecessary access issues, especially with dynamically assigned IP addresses that may change over time. Consider requiring attendance in a booked space, or the eAssessment platform.
Enforced delay between attempts: If multiple attempts are allowed, you can set a minimum time delay between attempts.
Browser security: We do not recommend using this setting, as it depends on the properties of each individual students’ web browser. If you wish to use a secure system, consider Safe Exam Browser, or the eAssessment platform.
Students cognisance of plagiarism policy: This provides a pop-up notice encouraging academic integrity. If required, we advise that you instead use the Academic integrity setting below, as it offers more detail.
Block concurrent connection: If this checkbox is selected, students are blocked from opening the quiz from a different device, browser, or computer. If a student makes any attempt to do so, they will receive an error message and will not be able to proceed. If a student needs to resume their quiz due to a legitimate issue (e.g. their battery died or the browser crashed), you can unlock their attempt. For more information, see Unlock quiz reattempts.
Note
Make sure you communicate clearly with students if you have enabled any extra restrictions on attempts to avoid any unexpected stress. For example:
- Before the Quiz (e.g., in Moodle or email reminders)Please note that this quiz prevents access from multiple devices or browsers. Make sure to use one device to complete the quiz or you may get locked out of your attempt. This measure helps maintain academic integrity during your assessment.
- Within Quiz Instructions (displayed in the quiz description) This quiz blocks access from more than one device or browser. Make sure to use one device to complete the quiz or you may get locked out of your quiz attempt. If you accidentally close your browser or experience a technical issue, reach out to your teacher to unlock the quiz.
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In Overall feedback, you can create automatic generalised feedback for students based on their quiz grade.
- Enter feedback that students will receive once they have completed the quiz.
- Clicking on Add 3 more feedback fields will let you adjust the grade boundaries for multiple automatic feedback fields. Any unused fields will be deleted when you save the quiz settings.
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In Activity completion section, the following automatic activity completion conditions apply to the quiz when this option is selected:
- Require view: The student clicks on the quiz to view it.
- Require grade: The student obtains a grade.
- Require a passing grade: A 'Grade to pass' is specified for the quiz in the Grade settings.
- All available attempts completed: A certain number of attempts were allowed on the quiz and the student has completed them all.
- Minimum number of attempts: A student must attempt a quiz a certain number of times.