Sections

Learn about how to use sections in quizzes or exams

Overview

Sections allow you to structure an assessment into logical parts, helping you organise content and control how candidates progress through an exam.

Sections can represent:

• Topics or modules

• Skill areas (e.g. Reading / Writing / Listening)

• Assessment stages

• Mandatory competency checks

Each section must contain at least one question sections can have their own:

• Timers

• Instructions (and instruction timers)

• Title

• IDs

There are two key features of sections to keep in mind when using them:

1. Once a section has been submitted, users cannot go back to the section to change their responses.

2. EMQ Groups cannot be split across sections

Creating and using sections

To create sections on a quiz or exam, go to the sections page. Add a section with a title and optional introduction. For section external id you can choose your own or the system will create one for you, if you're importing questions from a CSV into a section you'll need to make a note of this ID to use on your sheet.

Once you're section is created you can assign questions to it for both exams and quizzes. Open the question you want to move into that section, got to Placement and select the requried section from the drop down and save.

Your question will show in that section and you'll see the different sections in the question overview.

Section settings

From the experience page of quizzes or exams, soft sections can be enabled. In soft sections, candidates can navigate back to view only questions and answers in previous sections. In strict sections (default), candidates must complete each section in order and cannot return to previous sections once they progress. This is commonly used in high-stakes or competency-based assessments to ensure responses reflect independent performance within each part of the exam.

Section Type	Description
Strict	Users cannot go back into a submitted section. They cannot view or modify answers from submitted sections. They cannot move forward into other sections without submitting the section they are on
Soft	Users can go back to view only previously submitted sections - but they cannot change their responses.

Section timers

Section timers allow you to set a specific time limit for completing an individual section within an assessment. When a section timer is active, candidates must submit their answers for that section before the time expires.

A quiz or exam will need to have Timed exam mode enabled in order to have timed sections. You can choose whether to have an overall time for the exam or a time per section. You will need to enable and save section timers on the Experience page before setting the timers for your sections

Selecting a timed exam with section timers

A section timer is the total amount of time allowed on that section. Once the timer runs out the user will be progressed onto the first question in the next question. If the finish a section early they won't be able to use any remaining time on other sections.

Section timer

The section timer can also be inferred as the total of all time allowed on individual questions, by default this is 2 minutes per question unless it has been modified.

Section instructions

Section instructions can be enabled which are shown before the start of each section. These Instructions can be given an additional timer to give users a reading time on a section instruction page which is shown before a section starts, this will be included in the total time allowed on an exam. Users who finish instruction reading before the timer has run out, will not be able to use that time in other sections.

Creating section instructions with a timer

Title: Displays as the H1 for your instructions

Body: Use the rich text editor to add in your instructions

How instructions are presented in quiz mode

Sections for students

On the users exam-hall page they'll be shown a breakdown of the allowed time in terms of what they get on instructions and what they get on answering questions

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Section grades

Section grades allow each section to have its own pass or fail thresholds based on performance within that section.

This is useful when candidates must demonstrate competency in specific areas of an assessment.

For example:

• A candidate must pass the Listening section to pass the exam

• A candidate must achieve at least 70% in a Compliance section

• Multiple sections contribute independently to grading decisions

Go to a quiz or exams Grade page and enable section grades and save.

Go to the sections page to add grades to each section, you must have at least one pass and one fail grade per section.

Every section grade has a minimum score = The lowest score required to achieve that grade.

Score is

$$Score = 100*\left [ \frac{Total \: achieved \: credits}{Max\:available\: credits}\right ]$$

On Synap, a candidate’s score percentage is calculated using the total number of credits achieved compared to the maximum credits available in the assessment.The final percentage is rounded to two decimal places. For assessments where each question is worth one credit (one mark), this calculation is equivalent to:

$$Score = 100*\left [ \frac{Total \: number \: correct \: questions}{Toal \:number\: questions}\right ]$$

See table below for examples of grades and minimum scores.

Grade	Minimum score	Type	Description
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 a user can possibly score in order to pass.
Fail	0%	Fail	users with between 0% and 39% will fail this exam.

In order to use the Advanced grading criteria at least one section must have a grade.

Advanced grading criteria available on Pro, Business and Enterprise plans

Learn more about grades and advanced grading criteria below

Grades