Creating a Quiz
Quizzes can be used in collections, courses, exams and provide the building blocks for the analytics on Synap. Learn how to make rich engaging questions and use the different question types available.
Quizzes are a fantastic way to boost user engagement and increase knowledge retention. Quizzes form the foundation for building exam. Using the platform question builder you can create different types of questions with different content to create rich, engaging quizzes.
This article is going to take you though the basics, check out other articles in this collection for more in depth guides into the different areas for quizzes. See the video below for an example of the Synap quiz experience
Practice mode quiz
Create and edit quizzes from Collections, Courses or the Library pages. Once in the quiz editor use the left hand submenu to navigate to the various areas and add in more information as well as customise your quiz experience. Your first step will be to create some questions
Quiz> Edit> Questions
From the question editor the system will prompt you to select the correct settings for each question type. All question types require a stem, and all types except Free text and File upload will at least one correct option and incorrect option. The system will show errors until these conditions are met.
For Free Text and File Upload questions you must provide a Text Box label which goes above the Free Text / File Upload box for students
To add more questions, right-click on the 'Add question' box at the bottom of the page and repeat the process above.
On free text questions you can also enable an option to ask candidates to take a picture of themselves through the webcam.
Student taking webcam snapshot
This is a great option if you want to have some identity verification during an exam. Just create a free text question and enable webcam snapshots in the question editor.
Apply further configuration to each question in the editor using Placement, Configuration and Marking.
Shows you the question position in a quiz (Order) as well as important information and identifiers associated with that question.
- External ID - Define your own unique External IDs for questions, this is helpful if you're managing very large question banks and plan on importing & exporting questions via csv.
- Section - If sections have been created select the External ID of the section that the questions should be in
Auto - The system looks at the length of the stem and options to select the optimal layout (Top down or Side-by-side)
- Top down - Question stem appears above, options shown below
- Side-by-side - (Recommended) Question stem appears on the left hand side, options on the right hand side
- Time in ms - Default time is 2 minutes per question, you can add a custom times into a questions in milliseconds
Side-by-side layout
Top down layout
Credits: By default users are given one point for answering a question correctly. You can customise the number of credits each question is worth. This comes in handy for free text question that require an essay response.
Use the marking drop down to apply a custom number of credits to a question. When enabled you can also create mark schemes for each question.
Create different areas and assign Max credits to those areas. If you are making lots of questions with the same mark scheme use the Clone question button to copy the mark scheme and questions.
Mark schemes
🚨 Only questions in exams can be marked & mark schemes cannot be created in the importer.
Feedback: You have the option to provide feedback to anyone who takes the quiz which is useful if you need to explain the answer further. Feedback can be written in the box near the bottom of the page.
Images: Images can also be added to questions and/or feedback by selecting the image icon to upload your chosen file
Inserting images into the question editor
Once you're happy with your question and possible responses click 'Save' to save any changes. You can then click the 'Preview' button to quickly take the quiz from a student perspective. This will open in a new tab.
We recommend doing this before making the quiz public to ensure everything is clear and displaying in the way you want it to.
All quizzes will be stored in the library and can be added to Collections / Courses during Collection / Course creation.
All quizzes that you create on Synap will be available in your Library. Go back into your created quizzes at any time to:
- Add questions
- Delete questions
- Changes questions
To delete a question, open it using the drop down arrow and click Delete
Changes and deletions are not made permanent until you click 'Save' in the top right-hand corner
Note: you should not delete questions from quizzes that are being used in live exams
Depending on whether your quiz has Sections or not will dictate how you organise your questions. For a test without Sections just click the Organise button in the top right hand corner of the screen. You will then be able to drag and drop the questions into a different order.
For a test with Sections, click Organise Section at the bottom of the Section.
Add instructions that can be accessed at any the quiz. And create strict sections that students can't go back into once submitted. More below:
Marking on Synap works by allocating points to correct responses. Free text and File upload question types can be manually marked. All other question types are marked automatically by the system. By default all correct responses are given 1 point per question, you can customise each question to be worth a different number of points. Or set a new default on the quiz
Points - Are what is awarded for a correct / partially correct response. If negative marking is being used then points are what are deducted for an incorrect answer
Credits - The maximum points up for grabs for answering a question correctly
Partial credits - the points allocated for a partially correct response eg a multi correct question where a user only got 1 out of the 3 correct responses correct.
Penalties - Maximum points that can be deducted for an incorrect option (negative marking needs to be enabled on the quiz)
Depending on the type of quiz you have, you may want to include some grades or passing boundaries. To create grades navigate to the grade builder using the sub menu. Once there you'll need at least one pass and one fail grade.
The boundaries translate to:
A = 80% = pass : users with 80% or above will achieve the A grade, and pass
B = 70% = pass : users with 70% or above will achieve the B grade, and pass.
E = 40% = pass : 40% is the lowest someone can possibly score in order to pass.
Fail = 0% = fail : users with between 0% and 39% will fail this exam.
Set the quiz, results settings and experience style from the Configure page. More on quiz and results configuration.
- Preview your content: When you're building a quiz you'll want to keep previewing everything. Make good use of the preview made offered on the question page and take your quiz as a student before you release it!
- Different question styles: Using multiple question styles presents users with a new challenge. It can keep your questions fresh and engaging.
- Clone questions: A huge time saver especially if you've got very similar questions with the same credits / mark schemes. Look for the little clone question button on each question in the editor
- Make use of external ids: Although external ids on questions and emqs aren't enforced, if you're going to end up with huge question banks we recommend you give them a unique id that easily identifies the question to your team eg great_expectations_magwitch_mcq1
- Tag your questions: If you want to get insights from your questions you'll want to give them tags. Tags let you group questions across quizzes. You can create as many tags as you like, and manage them in the Tag manager (Settings> Tags)
- Bulk import / export. Once your quiz gets to a certain size it may become easier to manage it off a question sheet. See our guide on using the question importer
Go to the 'Quiz details' tab of the quiz you wish to clone. Then at the bottom right of the description box, you'll see the 'clone quiz' button. Clicking this will clone the quiz you are currently on. This will:
- Make a copy of all the questions with new ids
- Copy over existing external ids
- Make a copy of any EMQs with new ids
- Duplicate sections, titles and anything else in the quiz into a new one.
🧠 Cloned quizzes are not linked to the original quiz so changing one won't change the other.
Last modified 20d ago