Question Types Supported by Community Quiz
Community Quiz includes 32 question types, grouped into eight families. This guide explains each one in plain language — what the learner does, when to use it, and how it is marked.
Audience: Anyone creating quizzes, exams, or surveys. No technical knowledge needed.
You set up questions in the Question Studio (see the Quiz Builder guide). Every type also has a built-in "How to use this type" panel with tips while you author it.
How questions are marked
There are three marking styles, referenced throughout this guide:
- Auto — marked instantly by the system (most types).
- Auto, partial credit — multi-part questions can award part-marks (e.g. 2 of 3 correct = 2 marks). You control this on the Scoring tab; the Scoring Guide explains it in full.
- Manual — a human reviewer grades the response (essays, uploads, spoken answers, observations). These wait in a grading queue.
- Not scored — collected for information only (surveys, psychometric scales, and the stimulus that frames other questions).
Overview
| Family | Question types |
|---|---|
| Choice | Single choice, Multiple response, True / False, Yes / No, Audio, Video, Confidence, Survey |
| Text | Fill in the blank, Cloze, Short answer, Essay |
| Matching | Match, Order, Classify |
| Interactive | Drag-and-drop text, Drag-and-drop image, Hotspot, Matrix, Dropdown |
| Numeric | Numeric, Calculated |
| Code | Code, SQL |
| Media | File upload, Oral recording |
| Specialised | Assertion–Reason, Case study, Reading, Observation, OSCE, Psychometric |
Choice questions
Single choice (MCQ)
The learner picks one correct option from a list.
- Best for: straightforward knowledge checks with a single right answer.
- Marking: Auto.
Tip: four or five options is a good balance — too few is easy to guess, too many overwhelms.
Multiple response
The learner selects every correct option (more than one is right).
- Best for: "select all that apply" questions.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (credit per correct choice; wrong picks can be penalised if you turn on negative marking).
True / False and Yes / No
The learner chooses between two options.
- Best for: quick fact checks and confirmations.
- Marking: Auto.
Audio
The learner listens to an audio clip, then answers a multiple-choice question.
- Best for: language listening, music, call-handling, or pronunciation checks.
- Marking: Auto (like a single choice).
- You provide: the audio file URL plus the options.
Video
The learner watches a video clip, then answers a multiple-choice question.
- Best for: technique demonstrations, safety scenarios, or case footage.
- Marking: Auto.
- You provide: the video URL plus the options.
Confidence
The learner picks an answer and rates how confident they are (Low / Medium / High).
- Best for: measuring genuine understanding and discouraging blind guessing.
- Marking: Auto with confidence weighting — being confident and right earns the most; being confident and wrong loses marks; low confidence is the safe middle. A question never scores below zero.
Survey
A poll with no right answer.
- Best for: opinions, feedback, course evaluations.
- Marking: Not scored — responses are collected and reported.
Text questions
Fill in the blank
The learner types a short answer that is matched against your list of accepted answers.
- Best for: key terms, single values, or short facts.
- Marking: Auto (exact match; you can make it case-insensitive).
Cloze
The learner fills several blanks embedded in a sentence or passage.
- Best for: completing a paragraph, definitions, or step descriptions.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (one mark per blank).
Short answer
The learner types a brief phrase matched against accepted answers.
- Best for: one- or two-word responses.
- Marking: Auto (borderline wording may need a quick manual check).
Essay
The learner writes an extended response.
- Best for: explanations, arguments, and analysis.
- Marking: Manual. You can set minimum/maximum word counts and grade against a rubric.
Matching questions
Match
The learner pairs each item on the left with its correct partner on the right.
- Best for: term-to-definition, cause-to-effect, country-to-capital.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (one mark per correct pair).
Tip: add one or two extra options on the right so the last pair can't be guessed.
Order
The learner arranges items into the correct sequence.
- Best for: processes, timelines, rankings.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (one mark per item in the right place).
Classify
The learner sorts items into labelled buckets.
- Best for: grouping into categories, types, or eras.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (one mark per item in the correct bucket).
Interactive questions
Drag-and-drop text
The learner drags word tokens into blanks in a sentence.
- Best for: completing sentences from a word bank.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (one mark per blank). Add a few extra words so guessing is harder.
Drag-and-drop image
The learner drags labels onto the correct points on an image.
- Best for: labelling diagrams, maps, or equipment.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (one mark per correctly placed label).
Hotspot
The learner clicks the correct spot on an image.
- Best for: "point to the…" tasks on photos or diagrams.
- Marking: Auto (correct if the click lands in a correct zone).
Matrix
The learner answers several rows that share the same set of columns (a grid).
- Best for: Likert banks, or several related multiple-choice rows.
- Marking: Auto when you provide an answer key; or leave it unscored to just collect responses.
Dropdown
The learner chooses from dropdown menus embedded in a passage.
- Best for: in-context choices within a sentence.
- Marking: Auto, partial credit (one mark per dropdown).
Numeric questions
Numeric
The learner enters a number, checked against your answer within a tolerance.
- Best for: calculations and measurements (with an optional unit label).
- Marking: Auto (set a tolerance, e.g. ±0.05; 0 means an exact match).
Calculated
The learner solves a formula whose numbers are randomised for each attempt.
- Best for: practising calculations where every learner gets different values.
- Marking: Auto (the system computes the expected answer per attempt and checks within tolerance).
- You provide: the formula and each variable's range.
Code questions
Code
The learner writes code in a syntax-highlighted editor.
- Best for: programming practice (JavaScript, Python, Java, and more).
- Marking: Auto by keyword coverage — the system checks the submission contains the required keywords. It does not execute the code.
SQL
The learner writes a SQL query against a described schema.
- Best for: database query practice.
- Marking: Auto by required-clause coverage (not executed).
Media questions
File upload
The learner uploads one or more files.
- Best for: worked solutions, documents, designs, or projects.
- Marking: Manual. Set how many files and which file types are allowed.
Oral recording
The learner records a spoken response in the browser.
- Best for: pronunciation, viva exams, presentations.
- Marking: Manual. Set a prompt and a maximum recording length.
Specialised questions
Assertion–Reason
The learner reads two statements (an assertion and a reason) and judges their relationship.
- Best for: rigorous reasoning checks common in science and medical exams.
- Marking: Auto (the standard relationship options are pre-filled and editable).
Case study & Reading
A scenario (with optional exhibits) or a reading passage that the following questions refer to.
- Best for: grouping several questions around shared material.
- Marking: Not scored on their own — they present the material; the questions after them carry the marks.
Observation & OSCE
An assessor marks the learner against a checklist of criteria while watching them perform — OSCE adds a named clinical "station".
- Best for: practical skills, clinical exams, and workplace assessment.
- Marking: Manual — an assessor scores the criteria; the learner is not asked to type an answer.
Psychometric
The learner rates a statement on a scale (e.g. Strongly disagree → Strongly agree).
- Best for: personality, attitude, and self-assessment profiles.
- Marking: Not right-or-wrong — responses roll up into subscale scores (you can reverse-score negatively-worded items).
Related
- Quiz & Exam Builder — how to add and configure questions, sections, and scoring.
- Scoring (Developer Reference) — the exact rules behind partial credit and negative marking.
- Question Types (Developer Reference) — technical detail and answer-data shapes for each type.