If you are not yet familiar with the basic structure of a quiz, it is highly recommended that you review the Quizzes - Structure and Overview topic to gain an understanding of the various components that make up a quiz. Once you are familiar with this information, continue reading this topic to gain some insight on the various types of quizzes that you can create, how to create a quiz, and the numerous features you can include in your own quizzes.
Creating A Quiz
Creating a quiz is quick and easy. One nice feature of Quiz Extreme is that the content of the quiz is not tightly bound to the display of that quiz when you are ready to administer the quiz as a computer based test, grid game, flash cards, paper test, or as a study guide. All of these modes of presentation are possible from just about any type of quiz you create without need for changing the quiz in any way. The following steps will take you through the process of building your quiz.1. Choose A Subject
Before you begin creating your quiz you must first decide to which subject the quiz will be added. Subjects help you keep your quizzes organized and easy to find when you need them. If you do not have a suitable subject, or do not have any subject yet, you will need to add one before you create the quiz. To create a subject:
- Make sure that the Quizzes item is expanded and showing in the Navigator at the left edge of your Quiz Manager window.
- Click on the "New Subject" button (
) on the Quizzes toolbar (note that each navigator item has its own toolbar of buttons that apply to that item's features). - In the large edit area to the right of the navigator, you will have a page where you can specify a name for the new subject and an optional description.
- When you have entered your required information, type Ctrl-S or select File>Save from the menu at the top of the window to save your subject (your changes will not be visible until you save them).
Now, you are ready to add your quiz:
- Select the appropriate subject.
- Click on the "New Quiz" button (
) on the Quizzes toolbar. - You will see the "New Quiz Wizard" dialog.
- Enter a unique name for the quiz and an option description.
- Click "Finish".
- The new quiz will open in the editor area of the window and is now ready to edit.
Editing/Building A Quiz
If you do not yet have a quiz open in the editor area, simply locate the quiz you want in the Navigator at the left side of the window. Then, double-click on the quiz, or click on the "Edit Quiz" button in the Quizzes toolbar.VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: When you make changes to a quiz, the changes do not take effect until you save the quiz. To save changes, type Ctrl-S or select File>Save from the menu at the top of the window.
Now you are ready to build or edit your quiz.
1. Create The Sections
As described in Quizzes - Structure and Overview, quizzes are broken down into one or more Sections. Questions are placed within a Section. This makes it possible to separate your quiz into logical groupings based on question type, content, etc.
Each Quiz must contain at least one Section. To add a Section to a Quiz, do the following:
- With the quiz open in the editor area, make sure the "Questions" item is expanded. If it is not, simple click on it.
- At the top of the "Questions" item you will see the Questions toolbar. Click on the "New Section" button (
). - The "Edit Section Dialog" will open.
- Specify a name for the Section.
- Enter any special instructions for the section (optional).
- Choose the type of Section you want to create (you will usually select Normal). If you select "Image Map" or "Vocabulary/Matching", you will have an additional option in the left side list. See Sections for complete details on different types of sections and their many powerful features.
- Specify an optional audio clip and/or video/image. See Sections for more information.
- Click OK to update the section.
- Continue adding sections as necessary.
Once you have at least one section, you are ready to begin adding questions. To add a question to a section, do the following:
- Select the section to which you want the question added by clicking on it once.
- To add a question or list of questions, use the "Add Question" button on the Quizzes toolbar (
) which allows you to enter one or more questions. If you have a Section selected, it will add the new question to the end of the Section. If you have a Question selected, it will add the new Question immediately after the selected Question. There are navigation buttons at the bottom of the Edit Question dialog that allow you to scroll back and forth through the current list of questions. Typing Ctrl-ENTER will quickly add a new question immediatly following the one you are currently editing. This makes it very easy to quickly enter a number of questions without needing to go back and forth between the keyboard and mouse. See Questions for more information. - Specify the necessary information for the question such as the type of question, question text, answer(s), audio, video, image, etc. You can also record an audio clip directly into a question using your computer's microphone to create spelling or foreign language tests, quickly and easily. See Questions for more information.
- NOTE: Multiple-choice questions can contain text for each possible answer or they can also contain an image. Again, see Questions for more information.
- If using the Quick Question Entry dialog, you can use the TAB key to switch between items without using the mouse. Further, once you have completed a question, you can press the ENTER key to quickly jump to a new question, again, without using the mouse.
More About Quizzes
There are several other items that you can add to your quiz. To see the available options, click on the "Details" item on the quiz editor to expand it and see the other options. The following options are available:
- Description: The description will show up on the first screen when running a quiz using the Standard Quiz Viewer (used to administer computer based tests for scoring). This is usually used to provide a description of the quiz, welcome message, and/or instructions to the student before they begin the quiz.
- Cache Multimedia Resources On Student Machine: Put a check in this box if you would like any multimedia resources (images, audio, or video) to remain on the students computer after they take the quiz for the first time. This can be a huge performance gain if your quiz uses a lot of images, video, and/or audio files. With this option off, computers on other computers on the network will pull those multimedia files across the network each time the quiz is taken on that computer.
- Audio Media: Use the
button to select an audio clip to include on the beginning page of the quiz. Any audio types supported by your Windows Media Player are supported. If you have a file that is not supported by your Windows Media Player, you can visit Microsoft to find more information about supported file types in Windows Media Player. - Visual Media: Use the button to select a video clip or an image to include on the beginning page of the quiz. Any video types supported by your Windows Media Player and images of type PNG, JPG, GIF, and BMP are supported. If you have a file that is not supported by your Windows Media Player, you can visit Microsoft to find more information about supported file types in Windows Media Player.
DON'T FORGET: When you make changes to a quiz, the changes do not take effect until you save the quiz. To save changes, type Ctrl-S or select File>Save from the menu at the top of the window.
