How to Make a Quiz in PowerPoint

Let’s accept that PowerPoint is the hidden gem in Misrosoft Office. Using standard PowerPoint tools, you can go far beyond creating presentations. Actually, you can build mini games with animation tricks or a video presentation, or make quizzes with strict navigation. 

In this article, we’ll show you simple steps on how to create multiple choice quizzes in Microsoft PowerPoint using two methods. Watch the video or skip to the article if you prefer reading.

How to Create a Quiz Right in PowerPoint (Method 1)

Let’s start with the method that requires only PowerPoint installed on your computer. By default, you can make a multiple choice quiz here. We’ll be using PowerPoint 2016 to demonstrate to you how to do this. If you would like to explore PowerPoint features on your Mac, feel free to learn how to install Windows on it.

Step 1: Create the front page of the quiz

Open a new slide and type the title of your quiz. Ours will be called “Mt. Everest Quiz”. You can also add some additional textual data like we did. 

Add an image that will be in line with your topic. To do this, click on the Insert tab and choose Pictures. Or you can do this by simply clicking on the picture icon in the center of your slide.

Step 2. Create the question and the answer slide

To create a question, move on to the next slide and type it in the Title box. Instead of questions, you can also use incomplete sentences, phrases, or mathematical equations. Add a picture that will illustrate your ideas well and serve visual communication.

Add reply options to your question. Go to the Insert tab and click the Text Box button. Type in the first option, then continue to add the rest of them.

Multiple choice tests typically contain one correct answer (also called the key) and three wrong answers (also called distractors). However, you are free to add as many options as you like.

Compose the other question and answer slides for your quiz in the same way.

Step 3: Create the correct answer slide

Add an additional slide after your first question saying that the learner has chosen the correct answer. In the Title box, enter a congratulatory message: Correct! / That’s right! / Well done!, etc. In the Content box, add a phrase that will encourage students to continue the quiz like Go to the next question! / Continue the Quiz! / Let’s move on!

Step 4: Create the wrong answer slide

Perform the same actions to create the wrong answer slide, which will be displayed when test takers make a wrong choice. Add another slide and type in the relevant text in the Title Box like Oops, that’s wrong… But this time give your learners a chance to go back to the question and try again. So, this is what our wrong answer slide will look like:

To make knowledge checks even more effective for learners, give feedback on each incorrect answer. Add helpful information on your feedback slide that explains certain questions and answers in more detail. 

Go on adding the correct and the incorrect answer slides after each of your PowerPoint quiz question.

Step 5: Add navigation to your quiz

Now it’s time to link the right and wrong answers to the relevant feedback slides. To do this, click on the answer text box, then go to the Insert tab and tap on Hyperlink. In the open window, choose Place in This Document and select the necessary “That’s right” or “That’s wrong” slide.

To continue navigation from feedback slides, add a hyperlink to the “Continue quiz” text. Once again, you’ll need to repeat the actions for every single slide, because feedback slides should lead to a new question every time.

To let your learners go back to the question, open the slide for incorrect answers and click on the “Try again” text. Add a hyperlink to the question where the learner made a mistake. This time, go to the Insert tab and click Actions. In the open window, select Hyperlink to → Last Slide Viewed.

Now our short quiz in PowerPoint is ready.

How to Create a Quiz Extremely Fast with iSpring QuizMaker ( Method 2)

Making a quiz in PowerPoint may take a while, since you need to create feedback slides for every single answer and add navigation between them manually. And this is not the only reason why it’s better to use special authoring tools like iSpring QuizMaker. Here are some more things that are missing from PowerPoint:

• You can’t create other types of questions such as drag-and-drop, matching, multiple response, survey, sequence, and others. 
• You can’t see how much of the test a learner has completed and how many points they scored.
• You can’t check who takes your quiz or how successful they are, and you can’t analyze their learning progress.
• You can’t put a PowerPoint quiz on your website, share it on social media blog, or even email it to someone who can’t access PowerPoint (no, not everybody has it).

We decided to improve our Mt. Everest Quiz with iSpring QuizMaker, a simple authoring tool, and this is what we got:

iSpring QuizMaker allows you to choose from 14 quiz templates for your interactive quiz: numeric questions, drag and drop questions,  true/false questions, matching questions, fill in the blanks, multiple-choice questions, multiple response questions, hotspot, sequence, short answer, select from list, drag the words, Likert scale, and essay. Such a comprehensive variety helps gamify the learning process, engage learners and enhance their experience.

In many situations, knowledge cannot be tested with basic multiple-choice quizzes only. For example, tests on historical topics require an understanding of how events evolved in time. That’s why we included a sequence question in our renewed quiz.

Sometimes more than one key answer should be chosen. These multiple response questions cannot be created by means of PowerPoint only. However, we did not discard the idea, and used iSpring QuizMaker for this purpose.

To learn how to get started with iSpring QuizMaker, see this short video tutorial:

Make quizzes that grade results

There are no tests without assessment; that’s why it’s essential that your quizzes evaluate students’ results. As we’ve already mentioned, PowerPoint doesn’t have such features; that’s why we only added a neutral end slide that didn’t indicate whether the quiz has been passed or failed.

On the contrary, the enhanced Mt. Everest Quiz grades learners’ results and shows their score, both during the quiz and at the end.

To make your quiz gradable, all you need to do is to choose the By passing score under Scoring Type in the Properties window of iSpring QuizMaker and set the passing score you need. By default, the passing score is 80%. 

In iSpring QuizMaker, passing result slides are created by default, so there’s no need to add them manually. At the same time, you can change the slide message according to your personal taste or needs, and add a graphic image or photo, audio or video.

After you’ve finished building a quiz, you can choose publishing options for it. For example, you can publish your interactive PowerPoint quiz to HTML5. This format will ensure that your learners have the best browsing experience no matter what device they use.

NOTE: To collect quiz results, you don’t even need an LMS which automatically tracks quiz progress. If you don’t use a learning platform, simply choose whether to get results via email or have them sent to your server in the iSpring QuizMaker Properties window.

Enjoy other amazing capabilities

Effective eLearning and eTesting are all about the details. iSpring QuizMaker provides authors with additional capabilities, but remains completely easy to use.  Let us share a couple of tips on how to squeeze more out of it.

For example, you can set quiz options like assigning scores and penalties for individual questions, or shuffling answers to keep students on their toes. You can also set the number of attempts and limit time to prevent learners from cheating or searching for answers in Google.

Note: iSpring QuizMaker also provides you with extended editing options, so you can get creative and change design of your slides or experiment with typing fonts.

To dive deeper into the process of creating assessments and quiz games, read our post about how to make online quizzes. 

Download a PowerPoint Quiz Template

While making a quiz in PowerPoint is an option, its functionality is limited, and it can be very difficult to author. With this classic software, you can add multiple choice quizzes to your PowerPoint presentation. Download the Mt. Everest Quiz source file to repeat the steps mentioned earlier and practice creating quizzes. 

However, to author an interactive quiz that really tests students’ knowledge, more innovative software is required. Try iSpring QuizMaker for free and start creating engaging interactive quizzes in PowerPoint right now.