Quiz

Hi Tim,

Sorry, I don't know of any way to achieve what you want with the present question capability of Moodle. Instead of trying to alter question behavior, maybe you could just change what you are doing to make it easier on yourself. Here are some possibilities.

I used to have another course with nothing but practice quizzes in it, that did not count towards student grades. Each quiz was ten questions randomly drawn from a question bank of the desired subject. It was up to the individual, but students could take as many random quizzes as they wanted to, until 0700 the day of a test. I tried to make sure I always had at least double the number of questions compared to the number I actually placed on a quiz that counted. The random quiz practice course shared the same question bank as my active courses, so I only had one set of questions to maintain. It always amazed me how many students did not take full advantage of this setup. Anyway, I did not alter the questions...what was in the random quizzes, was what was on the quizzes that counted.

Instead of altering your multiple choice questions, use the Flash Card add-on and put copies of questions there as you are making the question. Adding the actual answer on the back of the card is optional, but if you do, when you set up the flash card activity for practice, you can flip answer and questions to provide variation. You didn't mention which Moodle you are using, but currently the Flash Card Set add-on is for Moodle 2.9 and lower. The Flash card set has options for including images, audio, and video. You can actually use it in Moodle 3, it just kicks you back to the Moodle front page after creating each card and pops up a few debug messages. Once the cards are made, you can use them to study.

Separate your question types by category. When making your multiple choice questions, duplicate just the question part onto a Description type question. When you make your tests, add just your calculated questions first, then duplicate the quiz. In the quiz that is going to count, add your actual multiple choice questions. In the duplicate, add the descriptions in place of your multiple choice questions. You can set your quizzes to pick actual questions randomly. Random selection of descriptions however, does not work, so you have to manually add them to your quizzes. Let your students practice with the duplicate quiz, just make sure that you keep it from counting in the course total. Having a separate practice course like I did, makes it easy to ensure that doesn't ever happen accidentally.