How to create an online exam or graded quiz with automatic scoring

SurvIQ's exam mode turns a single-choice, multiple-choice, or dropdown question into a graded question, with a correct answer, points, and automatic scoring for each respondent. It's useful for knowledge assessments, internal certifications, training quizzes, or exams with automatic grading.

Turn on exam mode for any question

Inside the editor for any choice-based question (single, multiple, or dropdown), an "Exam mode" toggle enables grading for that specific question. It's not a survey-wide setting: you can mix graded questions with regular opinion questions in the same survey.

Mark the correct answer and assign points

With exam mode on, an icon appears next to each option to mark it as correct, along with a "Points for this question" field to set how much it's worth. You can use different point values per question if some are worth more than others, or turn on uniform scoring from the exam's general settings so every question is worth the same.

How to open the exam settings

The minimum passing score isn't set inside each question, but in a separate panel: click the "···" (More options) button in the builder's top bar and pick "Exam" from the menu.

Set the minimum passing score

From that panel you set the minimum score to pass, as a percentage, and whether the respondent sees their result (pass/fail and score) right after finishing or not.

What the respondent sees

While taking the exam, respondents answer just like any other survey: they don't see which options are marked correct or their score in real time, so the assessment stays valid. If you turned on "show result", they see whether they passed and their total score at the end.

Results are scored automatically

In the results section, each response shows the score earned and whether it passed, with no need to review and grade each response by hand. For large groups, that's the difference between grading an exam in minutes instead of hours.