How to Create a Self-Grading Quiz in Google Forms

If you are a teacher, trainer, or team lead who needs to test someone’s knowledge, you probably create quizzes using Google Forms and then manually read through every response to calculate scores. This process is slow, tedious, and error-prone when you have dozens or hundreds of respondents.

Google Forms has a built-in Quiz Mode that transforms a standard form into a self-grading assessment. Once you define the correct answers, Google Forms will automatically score every submission the instant it is submitted, display the results to the respondent in real-time, and provide you with a comprehensive analytics dashboard showing which questions were most commonly answered incorrectly.

How to Turn a Form into a Quiz

1. Open Google Forms (forms.google.com) and create a new blank form, or open an existing one.
2. Click the Settings tab (the gear icon at the top of the form).
3. Under the “Quizzes” section, toggle the switch next to Make this a quiz to the On position.

Several new options will appear, including “Release grade” (choose whether respondents see their score immediately after submitting, or later after you manually review them) and “Respondent can see” (choose whether they can see missed questions, correct answers, and point values).

How to Set Correct Answers and Point Values

Once Quiz Mode is enabled, you must define the correct answer for each question.

1. Return to the Questions tab.
2. Click on any question in your form to select it.
3. At the bottom-left corner of the question card, click Answer key.
4. Select the correct answer (or multiple correct answers for checkbox questions) by clicking on the appropriate option.
5. In the top-right corner of the answer key panel, set the point value for this question (e.g., 10 points).
6. Optionally, click Add answer feedback. You can type a custom message that will be shown to respondents who answer correctly (e.g., “Well done!”) and a different message for those who answer incorrectly (e.g., “The correct answer is X. Review chapter 4.”).
7. Click Done.
8. Repeat this process for every question in your quiz.

How Automatic Grading Works

Once the correct answers are set, every response submitted by a participant is graded instantly. The participant can see their total score (e.g., “You scored 7 out of 10”) immediately after clicking the Submit button, along with any custom feedback you provided.

Questions that require a typed paragraph response (short answer or long answer) cannot be graded automatically, as there is no single correct text to match against. These must be graded manually by the form owner.

How to View Quiz Analytics

As quiz submissions accumulate, Google Forms generates an automatic analytics report.

1. Open your quiz form.
2. Click the Responses tab at the top.
3. You will see a Summary view that includes:
   • The average score across all respondents.
   • A distribution chart showing how many people scored within each range.
   • A question-by-question breakdown showing the percentage of correct and incorrect responses for each item.

This breakdown is invaluable for teachers, as it instantly reveals which specific topics your class is struggling with, allowing you to adjust your teaching accordingly.