Quiz Questions Default Marks - Strange Behavior

Quiz Questions Default Marks - Strange Behavior

by S G -
Number of replies: 3

I have imported a set of 1000 MCQs formatted in the Moodle XML format into a question bank.

All questions are set to 4 marks, with -1 (25%) negative marking for wrong answers.

  • When I create a quiz from this question bank, questions which I add manually pick up the maximum marks correctly - i.e. 4 marks.
  • When I use the 'Random questions' option and add two questions from the same database, the maximum marks gets defaulted to 1 mark

I have tried to see if there some setting that needs to be adjusted and could not find any.

The problem is that I will have to set up 20 quizzes that will have 100 random questions each and changing the default max marks for each question manually is painful, especially when the max marks are already in the XML.

My question : How can I get the 'Random' questions to pick up the Max Marks from the questions (which is already set to 4 marks) and not default it to 1 mark ?

Questions added manually are picking it up correctly. Other than the Manual / Random way of adding questions, everything else is same in all the four questions below.


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In reply to S G

Re: Quiz Questions Default Marks - Strange Behavior

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

You may know that in this case all the questions in that category are worth 4 marks, but Moodle has no very easy way of knowing that. 

Therefore, Moodle always adds random questions as worth 1 mark, and the only option is for you to then edit the score. Sorry.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Quiz Questions Default Marks - Strange Behavior

by S G -

@tim hunt

I guess I was not so clear in my question . . .

  • The Moodle XML file already has the grade / marks correctly set as 4.
  • After I import the questions into the Question bank and look at the settings of each question, it correctly shows the default marks as 4
  • If I select the 'add question from Question bank' option and manually add the questions from the bank, it correctly takes the default as 4
  • The only glitch is when I use the 'Add random questions' option, then the system defaults the marks to 1

Shouldn't the random questions also just read the marks that have been already set for the specific question in the Q-bank ?


Screenshot below, the same two questions when added manually - take 4 as the default marks.

The same two questions, when added via the random method, take the default marks as 1.


As far as the validity of the XML is concerned, I downloaded them from the same Moodle installation, so there is no issues there.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to S G

Re: Quiz Questions Default Marks - Strange Behavior

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

You were completely clear in your question. I guess I was not clear enough in my answer sad I can't even think of another way to explain it.

Moodle is working as expected and intended. Essentially, you are asking for a computer to display common sense, and computers don't work like that.

Average of ratings: Useful (4)