Your first assessment
This guide builds a standard auto-graded assessment from scratch: questions, points, grading rules, timing, and what happens after people submit.
1. Create the assessment
On the Assessments page, click New assessment. The dialog asks for the assessment type: Standard (multiple choice, essays, and more) or Coding (problems graded by compiling and running code — a Professional feature). Pick Standard, give it a title, and create it.
2. Add questions
The builder's library offers 16 question types: choice (multiple choice, true/false), written (short answer, essay), arrangement (matching, fill-in-the-blank, ordering), code-flavored (code completion, code output, code writing, bug detection, code ordering), interactive (dropdown match, categorization, word bank), and numerical answer — plus a timer break layout element for multi-step assessments.
Most types grade themselves. Essay and code writing always go to manual review — you'll grade those after submission.
3. Set points per question
Select a question and open its scoring settings: the points it's worth, a difficulty label (easy, medium, hard), and a per-question partial-scoring override if one question should behave differently from the assessment default.
4. Configure grading
Assessment-level grading lives in the settings dialog: a pass threshold percentage, whether participants see pass/fail, partial scoring for partially-correct answers, and an optional penalty for wrong answers — blanks are never penalized and the total can't drop below zero.
You can also randomize question order or have each participant answer a random subset of the question pool.
5. Timing, attempts, and layout
Set an overall time limit in minutes, cap the number of attempts, add a delay between retakes, and choose which score counts — highest, latest, or average.
Under style, pick how questions are presented: a single page, multi-step with timed breaks, or one question at a time.
6. Decide who can take it
Participant authentication offers three levels: anonymous submissions, name only, or username & password with pre-configured participant accounts (a Professional feature). You can also collect IP addresses to enforce retake limits for anonymous participants.
Professional plans add proctoring on top: live monitoring, anomaly detection, and a Safe Exam Browser lockdown — see the Proctoring & Monitoring section.
7. Share, then grade
Share works like forms: save, set visibility, and copy the link from the Share tab. Submissions are auto-graded on arrival; anything needing manual review is flagged on the Submissions page, where the grading screen walks you through question by question — with AI able to suggest scores and justifications for open-ended answers.
Plan limits
Keep going
Related references for everything this guide touched:
- AssessmentsAuto-graded tests with rich question types, time limits, and retake policies.
- Proctoring & MonitoringWatch attempts live, detect suspicious behavior, and lock down the exam environment.
- AI AssistanceGenerate complete drafts of forms and assessments from a prompt and your own files.