The Questions menu in a Moodle Quiz provides a list of the questions used in a Quiz. Questions can be added from a variety of sources, have their points managed, and be deleted in bulk.

This article provides instructions for adding and managing the questions used in a Quiz.

Using the Questions Menu in a Moodle Quiz

First, navigate to the Questions page in the Quiz using these instructions:

1. In the main Moodle course page, navigate to the Quiz activity.
2. At the top of the page, in the Quiz menu, select the Questions tab.

The Questions menu will display. A list should be shown with the questions in the given Quiz, if any have been added.

Adding Questions

Questions in a Moodle Quiz can be added in three ways:

• Creating a new question to add to the Quiz directly
• Adding an existing question from the Question Bank
• Creating a Random question that pulls from a specific category

Questions can be found and managed in the Question Bank when they're created. See the "Overview of the Question Bank in Moodle" article for instructions on accessing the Question Bank.

Adding a New Question

Adding a new question will open the question creation menu, where the question type can be selected and built. For additional information on question types, see Moodle's "Question types" documentation.

To create a new question directly in the Quiz:

1. Under the Shuffle checkbox, click the Add link.
2. From the drop-down menu that appears, select the + a new question option.
3. In the Choose a question type to add window, select the type of question to add.
4. Click the Add button.
5. Create the new question using the question creation page.
6. At the bottom of that page, click the Save changes button.

The question will be added to the Quiz.

When creating the question, it will need to be organized into a Question Bank category. See the "Creating Question Bank Categories in Moodle" article for more details.

Adding a Question from a Question Bank

This option is best used when the question has already been created.  It can also be used to select multiple questions in the same category in the question bank.

To add an existing question from a Question Bank:

1. Under the Shuffle checkbox, click the Add link.
2. From the drop-down menu that appears, select the + from question bank option.
3. In the Add from the question bank... window that appears, in the filter conditions, set the Category field to the category that contains the question to add.
4. Click the Apply filters button to load questions in that category.
5. In the list of questions that appears, select the question or questions that will be added using the checkboxes to the left of each question's title.
6. Select the Add selected questions to the quiz button at the bottom of the menu.

Questions will be added in the order they appeared in the selection list, and may need to be reordered for Quiz structure. Point values may need to be adjusted.

If questions do not appear in the selected category, they may need to be organized into that category. See the "Adding a Question to a Question Bank Category" article for instructions.

Adding a Random Question

This option is best used when multiple questions are created and exist in a question bank already. 

Questions will be randomly drawn from a question bank category, so organize questions in a category so that the Random question doesn't use a question it's not meant to. Review the "Organizing Question Bank Categories in Moodle" article for further guidance. 

Ensure the number of questions in a category exceeds the number of random slots used, or the Quiz will not allow a new attempt and provide an error message. For example: if the quiz has ten random question slots, but uses a category with only eight questions, it can't select two questions for the remaining slots and won't allow students to attempt the quiz.

To add a random question:

1. Under the Shuffle checkbox, click the Add link.
2. From the drop-down menu that appears, select the + a random question option.
3. In the Add a random question window that appears, select the Existing category tab.
4. in the filter conditions, set the Category field to the category to randomly draft questions from.
5. Click the Apply filters button to set that category as the selected one.
6. Set Number of random questions to the number of random questions to add to the Quiz.
7. At the bottom of the window, click the Add random question button.

The random question(s) will appear as Random (Category name) based on filter condition in the list of questions in the Quiz. Verify the correct category is used by identifying the name of the category in parentheses in the question's title. If the category is not correct, delete the Random question slot(s), and walk through these instructions again to select the correct category.

When a student takes the exam, this Random question slot will draft a question from the selected category, and assign it to their attempt.

If questions from a category are directly added to a Quiz, they can not be selected at random. This reduces the total number of possible questions within the category that can be assigned randomly. For example: if a category has ten questions, and two questions were directly added to the quiz, then only eight Random questions can be generated from that category.

Managing Questions in the List

The Questions list can have its Questions edited individually, or removed in bulk.

Editing a Question in the List

To edit an existing question in a Quiz:

1. In the list of questions, locate the question to edit.
2. In that question's row, click the title of that question.

The question editing page will open. To use the Question Bank for question editing, follow the instructions in the "Overview of the Question Bank in Moodle" article.

Changing the Random Question Category

To change the category that a Random question slot uses in the Questions menu:

1. In the list of questions, locate the question to edit.
2. In that row, click on the Random icon, which looks like a gear with dice.
3. In the Editing a random question page, set the Category field to different category.
4. To use the subcategories of that category, enable the Also show questions from subcategories field using the checkbox.
5. Click the Apply filters button.
6. In the list of questions that appears, confirm these are the questions to use for this Random question slot.
7. At the bottom of the page, click the Update filter conditions button.

This will apply the selected category to the Random question slot. This can only be done for individual Random question slots, and not in bulk.

Removing Multiple Questions at Once

To bulk remove questions in the list:

1. Above the list of questions, click the Select multiple items button.
2. Using the checkbox to the left of the question title, select each question to delete.
3. To select all questions, click the Select all button.
4. After selecting the questions, click the Delete selected button.
5. In the Confirm pop-up window, click the Yes button.

The page will reload and the selected questions will be deleted.

Additional Resources

Overview of Moodle Quizzes (DELTA Knowledge Base)

Adding a Question to a Quiz Video Tutorial (DELTA YouTube)

Question Types (Moodle Docs)

For additional assistance, please contact the LearnTech Help Desk at learntech@ncsu.edu or (919) 513-7094, or via the Get Help form on the DELTA Knowledge Base.