Exam question bank – teacher's guide

1 What the exam question bank is and how to open it

The exam question bank is a question store where exam questions are kept in folders. Questions from the bank are used in exams with the “Load from Bank” and “Random Question” functions.

The bank is part of the Task banks view (formerly “Browse Questions”). Open it from the navigation menu “+ Add tools” → Browse → Task banks (subtitle “Exam, course & quiz tasks”) and choose the 📝 Exam questions tab. You can also pin Task banks to the navigation. The app remembers which tab was open last.

+ Add tools→ Task banks→ 📝 Exam questions

The Task banks view has three tabs:

📝 Exam questions – the question bank for exams (folders). This guide covers this tab.
📚 Course tasks – the course tasks of all courses in one place.
🧪 Quiz tasks – the task bank for course quizzes with its categories, see Practice quiz.

There are two ways to get questions into the bank:

By creating them in the bank – the same question types are available as in the exam editor (section 4). Questions can also be edited afterwards (section 5).
By importing from Moodle – from a Moodle XML file (section 6).

Exam questions are the question bank for exams. The tasks for practice quizzes are a separate bank with categories in the same view, on the 🧪 Quiz tasks tab (you can also get there from the “Manage Quiz Tasks” card in the Courses view).

2 Bank overview

The Exam questions tab has two parts: Folders on the left (searchable) and the selected folder’s Questions on the right. At the top are the “Create New Folder” and “Load Questions From Moodle” buttons. When you open a folder, the “Add New Question” button and the “Select All” option appear above its questions. Each question card has a checkbox, a type icon and badge, the points, a 👁 preview icon and a “Preview” button.

The Exam questions tab of the Task banks view: folders with their task counts on the left, the questions of the open folder (Derivatives) on the right – multiple choice, cloze, math essay, matching pairs and a multiple-choice set.

Folders – questions are organised into folders (e.g. by topic). The “Search folders...” field filters the list. You can rename a folder by holding the mouse button down on it for about a second; an empty folder can be deleted with its × mark.
Questions – the questions in the open folder with type badges. Hover over the 👁 icon for a quick preview; Preview opens the question, where you can edit (Edit), delete (Delete) or copy (Copy) it.

3 Create New Folder

Press “Create New Folder”, give the folder a name and press Save. Folders help you organise questions, for example by topic, course or difficulty level, so they are easy to find when putting exams together.

You can also create folders automatically when importing from Moodle (see section 6) by using the file’s own folder names.

4 Create a question in the bank

Open a folder and press “Add New Question”. You can choose from the same question types as in the exam editor – so you do not need to import questions from Moodle but can create them directly in the bank.

The bank’s question type menu: seven types – the same as in the exam editor, except for the Load from Bank, Random Question and Matriculation exam tasks cards.

✅ Multiple Choice – one or more correct answers (the “Allow multiple correct answers (MCQ Multi)” option).
📝 Math essay (formerly “Essay”) and ✍️ Essay (writing) – an open answer with the math editor / a longer writing task.
⬜ Cloze question – gaps to fill in a text.
🔗 Matching pairs – left–right pairs. Each side of a pair can be text, an image or both: add an image with the side’s 🖼 button. new
🎧 Multiple-choice set – a shared prompt (including an image or mp3 audio) with several multiple-choice items below it, each with its own points; the student sees them on the same page. new
🎥 Video response – the student records a video.

Choose the type, fill in the form (question text, options/gaps/pairs, points) and save. The question appears in the folder’s question list with its type badge.

Questions created in the bank are saved in the same format as in the exam editor, so they work directly in exams as their correct type.

💡 Tip – a rubric for AI grading: if your school uses AI, the AI can make a preliminary assessment of open questions (math essay, writing essay) when you grade the exam. When you create an open question, add a rubric, i.e. scoring instructions for the AI, at the end of its model answer (what earns points and how many for each). This makes the AI’s preliminary scoring match your own grading better. Multiple choice, multiple-choice sets, cloze and matching are checked automatically.

The forms for the multiple-choice set and image pairs are described in more detail in the guide to creating an exam: Multiple-choice set and Images in matching pairs.

5 Editing a question

You can edit any question in the bank, whatever its type. Press the question’s Preview button and then Edit in the preview, and the question opens pre-filled in the same form. Make your changes and save – the question is updated in place.

Editing opens the form for the question’s correct type (multiple choice, cloze, matching, essay, writing essay or video).
Saving keeps the same question (it does not create a copy).
You can also copy, move or delete questions: tick the questions (or “Select All”), and the Copy, Move and Delete buttons appear below the list.

6 Import questions from Moodle

As an alternative to creating questions, you can import ready-made questions in Moodle XML format. Press “Load Questions From Moodle”, choose the file and the target folder.

Moodle import: choose the XML file and either use the file’s own folder names or give the name of the target folder.

Select a file – a question file exported from Moodle (.xml).
Use folder names from the file – creates folders automatically according to the categories in the Moodle file.
Folder Name – if you do not use the file’s names, give the name of the target folder.
Upload – imports the questions into the chosen folder in the bank.

Moodle import supports, among others, multiple-choice, cloze and matching questions as well as STACK tasks. STACK tasks can only be added to the bank by importing (they are not created by hand in the bank).

7 Using the questions in an exam

The bank’s questions are used in exams. When you build an exam (“Create Exam”), choose “Load from Bank” as the question type and pick a ready-made question from the folder you want. The question arrives in the exam as its correct type (multiple choice, cloze, matching, etc.).

Create Exam→ Add question→ 📂 Load from Bank→ Choose folder + question

The bank’s folders are also used by the 🎲 Random Question function: a question is drawn for the student from the chosen folder. You can add many random questions from the same folder at once, as long as the folder has enough different questions (see Random questions).

In the exam editor you can also tick “Save question to bank” in the form and enter a folder name, so the new question is saved to this bank at the same time.

This way the same questions can be used in several exams: you create and update them in one place in the bank and pick them for exams as needed.