How to Grade Essay Questions

ProProfs Quiz Maker supports both manual grading and AI-assisted grading for essay and fill-in-the-blank questions. With AI Smart Grading, ProProfs AI automatically evaluates responses, assigns scores, and generates feedback while still giving instructors complete control to review, edit, or override the AI-generated grades before results are shared with quiz takers.

This article explains how AI-assisted grading works, how to grade essay questions, and how to control when quiz reports are released.

Benefits of AI-Smart Grading:

• Fair evaluation: Semantic understanding ensures accurate scoring even when answers are phrased differently.

• Reduces grading errors: Minimizes mistakes caused by fatigue or oversight, ensuring more reliable results.

• Meaningful feedback: Learners receive clear, actionable feedback to support improvement.

How Essay Grading Works

For essay and fill-in-the-blank questions, grading works in one of the following ways:

• AI Smart Grading enabled
  ProProfs AI evaluates learner responses, assigns a score, and generates feedback automatically.

• Manual grading
  The instructor reviews each response and assigns scores and feedback manually.

Even when AI Smart Grading is enabled:

• The instructor can edit or change the AI-generated score.

• The instructor can rewrite or replace the AI-generated feedback.

• Final grades are always published under the instructor’s authority.

Where to Enable AI Smart Grading

AI Smart Grading is enabled at the question level.

To enable it:

• Open your quiz and select an Essay or Fill-in-the-Blank question.

• In the question settings panel, turn on Grading.

• Enable AI Smart Grading.

Once enabled, ProProfs AI automatically evaluates responses when learners submit the quiz.

What ProProfs AI Evaluates

ProProfs AI uses semantic understanding to evaluate text-based responses by analyzing:

• Content accuracy

• Concept coverage

• Relevance to the expected answer

• Language clarity

Based on this evaluation, AI Smart Grading:

• Assigns a suggested score

• Generates contextual feedback for the learner

The instructor can review and modify both before finalizing results.

How to Grade Essay Questions (Step-by-Step)

Step 1: Open the Quiz Report

From your dashboard, go to Reports and open the quiz you want to review.

Step 2: Open the User Score Report

Click the View icon under the Reports column to open an individual learner’s score report.

Step 3: Go to “Grade Essays”

Click Grade Essays to review essay and fill-in-the-blank responses.

Here, you will see:

• Learner responses

• AI-generated scores and feedback (if AI Smart Grading is enabled)

• Editable score and feedback fields

Step 4: Review and Finalize Grades

For each response, the instructor can:

• Accept the AI-generated score and feedback

• Edit the score

• Modify or replace the feedback

• Grade manually if AI Smart Grading is disabled.

Click Post & Next to save the grade and move to the next response.

You can also choose whether to notify the learner about the update.

Step 5: Mark Grading as Complete

Once all essay responses are reviewed, mark grading as complete.

At this point:

• Essay points are applied.

• Final quiz scores are recalculated automatically.

• Grades and feedback are finalized in the Reports section.

Viewing Grades and Feedback in Reports

Grades and feedback are shown in the Reports section and appear as if they were provided directly by the instructor.

Before Essay Grading Is Completed

• The report may show a partial score.

• Essay points are not included.

• Grading is marked as pending.

After Essay Grading Is Completed

• The report shows the final score.

• Essay grades are included.

• Feedback appears as instructor-provided.

• The report displays a Grading Complete status.

Sharing Results with Learners

After grading is complete, instructors can share results by:

• Clicking Email Report to Student to send the updated report or certificate.

• Downloading the updated report for records.

When emailing reports, you can:

• Choose the email format.

• Add a custom message.

• Control what learners see in the report.

Configuring When Quiz Reports Are Released

If your quiz includes essay questions, you may want learners to see their report only after grading is completed.

How to Configure Release Report Settings

• Open your quiz and go to Settings.

• Navigate to Advanced.

• Locate Release Report.

• Select Manually, after essays are graded.

• Optionally add a custom message to display at the end of the quiz instead of an interim score.

• Save your changes. This ensures learners only see final, instructor-approved results.