Quiz Sheet Maker

Two formats in one box

Multiple choice goes in as question | choice / choice / choice | answer number. A slash anywhere in the second field is what marks a line as multiple choice, and the choices split on it. The answer number counts from 1 in the order you typed the choices; give a number larger than the number of choices and the line is rejected rather than guessed at. Written answers need only question | answer — no slash in the second field means written, and on the test paper the answer is replaced by ruled lines.

Either form takes one more field at the end holding a number, which becomes that question's point value. Lines without one use the default from the form. Mix both formats freely in the same list; numbering follows the order they appear in, starting from whatever you set as the first question number, which is what you want when a paper runs across two sheets or continues from a previous section.

Shuffling that keeps the key honest

Turn on choice shuffling and each question's options are rearranged and the recorded answer number moves with them. There is nothing to reconcile by hand afterwards. Because the shuffle is seeded by the number in the form, the same number always gives the same arrangement — print the test today and the key next week and they still agree. Change the number and you get a different arrangement of the same questions, which is how you make an A version and a B version. Print each paper and its key at the same seed and note which is which.

Question shuffling reorders the questions themselves and toggles separately. When your worry is that too many answers are landing on option 2, shuffle the choices only: that scatters the answer positions while leaving the questions in a sequence you deliberately arranged.

What gets rejected and why

A line with no pipe or tab cannot be split into a question and an answer, so it is skipped. So is a multiple choice line with fewer than two choices or more than ten, one whose answer field is not a whole number, and one whose answer number falls outside the range of choices it offers. Every skipped line is shown verbatim at the bottom of the results, up to four of them, so you can find the typo rather than hunt for it.

One trap deserves naming: a slash inside a choice. A question offering km/h as one of its options will be split at that slash into two nonsense choices. Write the unit differently, or make it a written-answer question. There is no escape syntax, which is a limitation rather than a design decision.

The two documents

The test paper starts with name, class and a score box that already has the total printed as the denominator, so nobody writes it in by hand thirty times. Each question carries its point value in brackets. Multiple choice prints with circled numbers, written questions with the number of ruled lines you set — one or two for a short answer, four or more where you are asking for an explanation, and it is worth matching the space to the answer you actually want, because the size of the box is what students read as the length of the expected answer.

The key comes in two halves. The top is a marking table: number, type, answer, points, and an empty column to write the award into, which is what you use when you are working through a stack at speed. Below it the full questions repeat with the correct choice in bold, for the paper where you need to see what was actually asked before deciding. Both documents open in a new window through the print dialog, so saving as PDF is the same button. Neither document, and nothing you typed to produce them, is uploaded anywhere — a quiz you have not given yet is worth keeping to yourself, and this page has no way to leak it.

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