How to Grade Quizzes in Different Ways

Grading quizzes is effortless with ProProfs Quiz Maker. This how-to guide explains the grading methods, including regular, partial, and custom grading. It also describes assigning points to particular questions and enabling a negative marking scheme.

Get the flexibility to grade your quizzes in the way that best suits your needs.

Let's have a look at the three grading methods available:

• Regular grading automatically assigns points for correct answers.
• Partial grading awards points for partially correct answers.
• Custom grading allows the quiz author to assign points based on their preferences for each answer option.

Besides regular, partial, and custom grading, ProProfs Quiz Maker offers other scoring methods. These include:

1. Manual grading, where instructors can manually grade essays and open-response questions. This allows for greater flexibility in grading assessments that require subjective evaluation.
2. Another option is negative marking, which penalizes learners for wrong answers and discourages guessing.
3. Bonus points can also be assigned based on criteria such as completing assessments on time or attempting certain questions.

Here's How You Can Select a Grading Method for Your Quiz:

Step 1: Select a quiz and click "Settings."

Step 2: Under the "General" tab, locate scoring, select "Assign points to each question," and click "Manage Point Assignment."

Step 3: Choose a "Grading Type" from the available options. The article provides detailed information about each grading type later on. You can assign points to individual questions in the quiz by using the "+Points" column. For example, here, every quiz question carries 5 points. 

 Step 4: You can also enable negative marking. To do so, toggle "Negative Marking" to "Yes," and a new "-Points" column will appear. You can enter the marks to be deducted for incorrect answers by the quiz taker. 

Let's learn the different grading methods in detail: 

1) Regular grading

Regular grading is the default & most frequently used grading. There are only points given if all correct options are selected.
 
For example, in the question below, if learners select options A, B, and C - they get 0 points. Again, if learners select only option A, they get 0 points. Learners only get points when the question is answered correctly by selecting both A & B and not selecting C & D.

What color is the sky?
A) Blue (correct)
B) White(correct)
C) Pink
D) Beige

To apply Regular Grading to your quiz, select "Regular Grading" in Step 3. 

2) Partial Grading

Like in the example above, some quizzes consist of two similar answers, out of which one is the correct answer, but the second option is also correct. Partial grading is one of the grading processes with which you can award points to learners for selecting more than one correct answer or for getting the answer partially correct. In the above example, if learners select only options A and B, they are considered to have answered the question partially correctly and will be given 50% of the total points assigned. 

Partial grading can be used when you create matching or checkbox question types. If you have selected partial grading during the point assignment, your learners will be automatically rewarded with specific points for choosing a partially correct answer.   Partial grading does not allow manually assigning points to each option. Instead, it automatically assigns a fraction of points to each option from the total.

Let's look at an example:

Q. Which of the following is located in the United States of America?

a)     Pyramids

b)     Statue of Liberty

c)     Washington, D.C

d)     Eiffel Tower

Out of the four options, "b" & "c" are correct, and you have allocated a total of 4 points to this question. In partial grading, the total points assigned to each question get distributed equally amongst all options. In this case, each option carries 1 point, which is awarded if the quiz taker's answer to that option (selecting it or leaving it unselected) is correct.

Here's what happens:

If users select "b" and partial grading is disabled, they get 0 points as they did not get the answers entirely correct.

If users select "b" and partial grading is enabled, they get 3 out of 4 points as they made only one mistake (not checking option c).

If users select "a" as well as "b" and partial grading is disabled, they get 0 points as they did not get the answers entirely correct.

If users select "a" as well as "b" and partial grading is enabled, they get 2 out of 4 points as they made two mistakes (not checking option c and checking option a).

Question Types That Support Partial Grading

The following question types support partial grading. These allow users to select more than one answer option:

Matching -  A matching question type is where learners select the correct answers from the drop-down menu to match two options based on associations and relationships. 

Fill in the blanks -  Learners type in the answers into blank spaces (text boxes). The answers are automatically compared with your choice of correct answers.

Checkbox - Learners select one or more answers from a list of options.

To apply Partial Grading to your quiz, select "Partial Grading" in Step 3 and click "Save."

3) Custom Grading

Unlike partial grading, where learners are automatically awarded points for choosing more than one correct answer, with custom grading, you can manually add specific points to the answer options in your quiz. It makes the grading of your quiz rigorous and detailed.

In addition to this, you also have full control over the grading process, as you can assign unique points to each answer option, unlike partial grading, where the points are equally divided among the answers when a learner selects two or more answers.

Custom Grading supports Checkbox type, Dropdown, and multiple-choice questions; you can assign points manually to each option in these question types.

To apply Custom Grading to your quiz, select "Custom Grading" in Step 3, and click "Save."