There are three different kinds of multiple-choice quizzes that can be created in PowerPoint – a quiz that gives immediate feedback as to whether you are right or wrong, a quiz that adds results to give a single score (‘eight out of ten’), or a quiz that gives several scores (‘five points for honesty, six points for friendliness...’). I’ll look at each of these in turn, but first I’ll explain the basics that underlie all three options. Please be aware, however, that PowerPoint is not a secure program and it will be relatively easy for users to cheat or break the system. These quizzes are for fun only!
The key to quiz design in PowerPoint is the Action Settings feature, which allows an object on the screen to be hyperlinked so that it triggers some activity when it is clicked with the mouse. The object might be a block of text, a clipart picture, or a drawn image like a circle or a star. For our quiz, we will keep it simple and use the text of the possible answers as our hyperlinks. Our different types of quizzes will be created by calling on different actions in these hyperlinks.
Our first step is to create a new blank presentation, choose a layout style and colour scheme and put a suitable title on the first slide. Then add a new bullet point slide with Insert / New Slide, and enter the first question as the title of this slide. Add each of the possible answers as separate lines with bullet points.
Now we need some text to appear on every page. Go to View / Master / Slide Master to bring up the display of the background material behind each slide. Select the Text Box icon from the Drawing toolbar (usually at the bottom of the screen) and draw a text box. Write some simple instructions in the box: ‘Click on the correct answer to respond. Click here to move to the next slide. Click here to exit’.
