How do I review and grade an essay question on a quiz?

The ‘Essay’ question type is used for any open-ended question on a quiz activity. Essay question type examples could include:

  1. What is the scientific definition of parallax?
  2. If the next space exploratory mission goal is to find extraterrestrial organisms, on which solar system body should we focus and why?
  3. Make a case for your selection for the most influential female astronomer of the 20th century.

Once your students have completed the quiz activity, you need to review and grade the essay questions. Follow these steps below to do that.

  1. From the main page of your course in Moodle, click on the quiz activity.
  2. From the main page of the quiz activity, click on the gray gear wheel in the upper right corner of the main section.
  3. From the drop-down menu that appears, click on the “Manual grading” option (under the “Results” section).
  4. On the “Manual grading” page, locate the question you wish to grade at that time. You can either click “grade” next to the number of submissions in the “To grade” column or you can click the “grade all” link next to the number of submissions in the “Total” column.
  5. Then read the responses. Underneath each response, there is a section with a yellow shaded background where you can make comments and enter the numerical grade earned for that response.
  6. When you are done working on this page, scroll down and click the “Save and go to next page” button. The system, by default, displays 5 questions per page, which means you will likely have a number of pages to read through.
  7. If you wish to return to the list of manual grading questions, click the link at the top of the page which reads, “Back to the list of questions.”

You can also reach the questions and grade them one-by-one through the “Results” page.

  1. From the main page of your course in Moodle, click on the quiz activity.
  2. From the main page of the quiz activity, click on the gray gear wheel in the upper right corner of the main section.
  3. From the drop-down menu that appears, click on the “Results” section.
  4. Scroll down to the students’ responses. Scroll over until you see the questions which say “Requires grading.”
  5. Click on the response you wish to grade. It will pop-up in a new window.
  6. Review the response and scroll down. Under the response is a link which reads “Make comment or override points.” Click on this link. It will also pop-up in a new window.
  7. Enter your comments and numerical grade for this question for this student’s response.
  8. Scroll down and click the “Save” button. Do the same for the previous window.
  9. Now that response for that specific question will display the numerical grade on the “Responses” page.