Help:Quiz

This is the help page for the quiz extension. Also see Quiz.

The quiz extension consists of very simple markup. This page is long because of the many possibilities which the quiz extension opens up. For a simpler and colourful guide to quizzes suitable for beginners, try the simple quiz help page.

Overview

Version

• Version 1.0 of the quiz extension is now ^{(20 May 2007)} active on Wikiversity.
• This documentation covers all the major features and most of the minor ones.
• A few exotic features are not yet covered, such as shuffle control using {X} {!X} {/X} tags.

Pedagogical considerations

• Where are the strengths and weaknesses of Wikiversity quizzing?
• How can you best use the quiz extension as a teaching tool?
• Wikiversity compared to Moodle - offers a detailed consideration of the quiz feature differences between Moodle and Wikiversity, including suggestions as to how each is best used.

How to create a quiz

The quiz tag

wikitext (what you write)	rendering (what you see)	comments
<quiz> insert questions here </quiz>	Point added for a correct answer:    Points for an incorrect answer: Ignore the questions' coefficients: This is where questions would appear.	The quiz tags do the following: They insert some standard quiz options at the top and a colour-key for marking. The colour-key only appears when the question is marked. They add a "submit" button at the bottom for when the learner has finished the quiz and wants it marked. Everything between the quiz tags is parsed by the quiz extension and turned into questions if possible. Theoretically it is possible to put quiz tags around each individual question, allowing a learner to mark each one in turn. Shuffling questions: if the shuffle questions button is shown, the questions can be shuffled by clicking the button. This only works so long as the quiz-taker has not started to answer the questions. Once the quiz-taker starts answering, the order is locked.
<quiz display=simple> insert questions here </quiz>	This is where questions would appear.	Importantly, the addition of "display=simple" as an attribute of the quiz tag removes the points table at the top. This is useful for short quizzes, and especially for situations where you insert single questions between text blocks.
<quiz shuffle=none> insert questions here </quiz>	Point added for a correct answer:    Points for an incorrect answer: Ignore the questions' coefficients: This is where questions would appear.	If you'd like to keep the points table but get rid of the button for shuffling questions, use shuffle=none as shown.

Inserting questions

The types of questions available are shown below.

An important point is that each question must be separated by a blank line, otherwise they are merged together into one question.

How to use the examples

In the examples on this page, there is both wikitext and rendering. The wikitext shows you the code, which you can copy and paste into your pages, or just learn and understand. The rendering shows you what the result will look like.

Copying and pasting

The markup has been slightly simplified in order to help understanding. If you copy and paste, you must insert <quiz> tags before and after the markup. You may wish to use the quiz tags with the "display=simple" option as shown above.

Note that the actual example below also use tables for clarity. If a quiz is inserted into a table, this modifies the appearance of a quiz - for example, boxes appear around some elements in the quiz. If you don't use a table, these boxes disappear and your quiz will look plainer.

When pasting, ensure that all the symbols are aligned with the beginning of the lines of the page - i.e. if any line begins with a space, formatting errors may occur.

Live demos

All the examples below should work. Don't be afraid to try them out. Hitting the correction button is OK - it won't change or damage this page.

Basic question types

• Note: For multiple choice questions(MCQs) with negative(-) sign and positive(+) sign, the positive sign(+) signifies the correct answer while the negative(-) sign(s) signifies the wrong answer and this is how Quiz know which answer is correct and which one is wrong.

Multiple choice / single response

wikitext	rendering	comments
{Question |type="()"} + The correct answer. - Distractor. - Distractor. - Distractor.	Question The correct answer. Distractor. Distractor. Distractor.	This type of question allows a single correct response and any number of distractors (3 distractors are shown, but it could be one, or nine, or any other number). The correct answer may be in any position, and is marked by a plus sign. Distractors are marked by minus signs. The wikitext shown should be inserted between <quiz> tags as shown above. Answers appear in the same order as in the markup, so it is advisable to shuffle them before exporting into markup. Every symbol, i.e. |, +, - and any other symbols listed further down, must be on a new line. The symbols must begin the newline - no spaces before them. The borders are a result of the border around the wiki table. They are optional. A distractor is the standard term for a multiple choice option which is wrong. The () symbol in the type attribute is supposed to look like a radio button. To see the full colour code (with four colours), try doing the quiz and clicking the correction button. A second click on a radio button (i.e. a click on an already clicked radio button) will deselect it.

True/false questions

wikitext	rendering	comments
{Bulgaria and Rumania joined the European Union in 2007. |type="()"} + TRUE. - FALSE. {Switzerland is a member of the European Union. |type="()"} - TRUE. + FALSE. {Anyone can be a Citizen Journalist. |type="()"} + TRUE. - FALSE.	1 Bulgaria and Rumania joined the European Union in 2007. TRUE. FALSE. 2 Switzerland is a member of the European Union. TRUE. FALSE. 3 Anyone can be a Citizen Journalist. TRUE. FALSE.

• In many quiz systems, true/false questions are listed as a separate kind of question, although they are really nothing more than a variety of multiple choice with a single response. The Wikiversity quiz extension correctly treats true/false questions as multiple choice with a single response. They are implemented in exactly the same way as above.
• The first of the two examples shows a true/false question where the correct answer is "true".
• The second of the two examples shows a true/false question where the correct answer is "false".
• The examples are live and can be tried out now.
• If you have a large number of true/false questions, a more efficient way to lay them out would be to use the tabular response type with radio buttons documented below.

Multiple choice / multiple response

wikitext	rendering	comments
{Question |type="[]"} + Correct answer. - Incorrect answer. + Correct answer. - Incorrect answer.	Question Correct answer. Incorrect answer. Correct answer. Incorrect answer.	This type of question is a multiple choice where more than one answer could be correct. Correct answers are indicated by plus signs, incorrect ones by minus signs. The wikitext shown should be inserted between <quiz> tags as shown above. Answers appear in the same order as in the markup, so it is advisable to shuffle them before exporting into markup. Every symbol, i.e. |, +, - and any other symbols listed further down, must be on a new line. The symbols must begin the newline - no spaces before them. The borders are a result of the border around the wiki table. They are optional. The [] symbol in the type attribute is supposed to look like a checkbox.