How do I create a short answer/essay question?

A short answer or essay question provides students with a text field in which they enter the answer.  This type of question must be manually graded, unless you award full credit using a minimum point value.

To have students upload a Word document in response to an essay question, use a file upload question instead.

The steps in this article assume that you have already gone to the Tests & Quizzes tool and selected an assessment, but if you need more help completing these steps, open the links below.

Go to Tests & Quizzes.

Select the Tests & Quizzes tool from the Tool Menu of your site.

Select an assessment.

Questions may be added to a new or existing assessment, or added directly to a question pool as described in How do I add a question to a question pool?

Create a new assessment.

Create from Scratch with assessment builder selected

For steps to create a new assessment, see How do I create an assessment?

Or edit an existing assessment.

Select Edit from the Action drop-down menu for the assessment.

Note:

  • Assessment editing must take place in the Working Copies tab or in the Published Copies tab before anyone accesses the assessment to take it.
  • Changes made to assessments in Working Copies do not affect assessments in Published Copies, and vice versa.

Select Short Answer/Essay from the Add Question menu.

Use the Add Question drop-down menu to select a question type, and choose Short Answer/Essay.

Set the point value for the question.

Enter an Answer Point Value into the text box.

Tip: An assessment's total point value is the sum of all its questions' point values (e.g., an assessment with 10 questions worth 10 points each will be worth 100 total points).

Display point value while students are taking the exam.

To Display Point Value while student is taking the exam, leave the default value of Yes.  To hide the point value, select No.

Note: To hide the point values for ALL questions in your assessment, it is recommended to select this option in the assessment Settings rather than for individual questions.

Add a minimum point value. (Optional)

Enter a Minimum Point Value to automatically award students points for answering the question, regardless of their answer.  Students who leave the answer blank will not receive the minimum point value.

Use case: The minimum point value might be used for questions designed to assess student engagement and participation.

Enter the question text.

Enter the Question Text into the Rich-Text Editor.

Add attachment(s). (Optional)

To provide additional resources related to the question or to include question text in an attached document, select Add Attachments to browse for and upload a file.

Assign to a part. (Optional)

If the assessment has more than one part, you may use the Assign to Part drop-down menu to choose the Part where the question will be added.

Assign to a question pool. (Optional)

To add the question to a question pool, Select a pool name from the Assign to Question Pool drop-down menu.

Adding a question to a pool places a copy of the question in the pool and leaves a copy of the question in the current assessment.  For more information on question pools, see What is a question pool?

Provide a model answer. (Optional)

Provide a Model Short Answer as Question-Level Feedback to show students a generic version of the expected answer.

Note: If you include a model answer here, you will also need to make it available to students in the Feedback Settings for students to access it.

Provide feedback. (Optional)

You may include additional Feedback which you can make available to all students.

Note: If you include feedback here, you will also need to make it available to students in the Feedback Settings for students to access it.

Select Save.