Introduction
Normal scoring is a simplistic right or wrong grade for each question.
Weighted scoring allows you to specify different scores for each possible answer. For example, you could make one question worth 3 points for the correct answer, or even make wrong answers be a negative score. This affects how percentage score is calculated, so we have added some examples here to show you how it works.
Caveat: Quiz results are calculated dynamically on request, As such, if you change the correct answer (or the weighted score) on a question, all past Quiz Results will be re-calculated when viewed again, which may vary from what was previously presented in the results dashboard, or to the user at the time they completed the quiz.
Percentage score calculation
The percentage score for a quiz using is calculated as follows:
Score for all Answer(s) Chosen / Sum of Total Score Available for all questions
Scores received and total score available for each question is calculated, and then converted to a percentage.
How each of these components is calculated depends upon the scoring method used in your Quiz field.
Normal Scoring Rules
Under normal (non-weighted) scoring, a correct answer (the answer identified in settings with the checkmark/tick) counts as 1, and an incorrect answer as 0. As such, the percentage score will be the percentage of correct answers.
Questions hidden by conditional logic at the time of quiz submission will still be counted in scoring calculations. They register as an incorrect answer.
If a multiple choice question has multiple correct answers, then a user must select them all for the question to be presented as correct (e.g. in the results summary).
Weighted Scoring Rules
Total score available for a question
This total score available for a weighted score quiz question depends on the Quiz field type used. calculated as follows:
For a single-choice Quiz field type, the total score available is defined as:Value of the highest scored answer.
For a multi-choice Quiz field type, the total possible is different: Sum of all positive scores assigned to answers.
This means that for a single answer question with multiple scores, the user may get 100%, even when selecting an incorrect answer, if that incorrect answer was weighted with the same (or greater) score as the correct answer.
The “correct” answer marker has no affect on weighted scoring, but does affect the display of correct and not-correct summaries in the quiz results.
0% quiz floor
Percentage score for a quiz can never be less than 0%, and will be rounded up to 0.
Hidden question scoring
Questions hidden by conditional logic at the time of quiz submission will still be counted in scoring calculations. They register as an incorrect answer.
Examples
Here are some examples to clarify how these rules interact.
Example 1: Weighted scoring with a single choice question
A radio button question (only one answer permitted) has the following answers, where weighted scoring has been used to establish a preferred correct answer, and a partially correct answer.
(A) Option A (3 points) (correct answer)
(B) Option B (1 points) (correct answer)
(C) Option C (0 points)
- If a user chooses A, they are marked as correct, and receive a percentage score of 100% (3/3).
- If a user chooses B, they are marked as correct, and receive a percentage score of 33% (1/3).
- If a user chooses C, they are marked as incorrect, and receive a score of 0%.
Example 2: Weighted scoring with a multi-choice question
A checkbox question (multiple answers permitted) has the following answers, where weighted scoring has been used to establish a preferred correct answer, and a partially correct answer.
(A) Option A (3 points) (correct answer)
(B) Option B (1 points) (correct answer)
(C) Option C (0 points)
- If a user chooses A, they are marked as incorrect (did not specify all correct answers), and receive a percentage score of 75% (3/4).
- If a user chooses B, they are marked as incorrect (did not specify all correct answers), and receive a percentage score of 25% (1/4).
- If a user chooses A and B, they are marked as correct and receive a percentage score of 100% (4/4).
- If a user chooses C, they are marked as incorrect, and receive a score of 0%.
Note: If a user chose all 3 answers in this example, they would also receive a percentage score of 100%, though the quiz results for that question would consider this incorrect (a non-correct answer was selected). As such, for checkbox questions it can sometimes be worth setting up the incorrect answers as negatively scored. For example, if Option D was scored as -3, than selecting all 4 options would get you only 67%. This will depend on how you want your quiz questions to be marked.
Example 3: Negative score for a wrong answer
A quiz has two radio button questions (only one answer permitted) has the following answers, where weighted scoring has been used to establish a penalty for the wrong answer:
Question 1
(A) Option A (3 points) (correct answer)
(B) Option B (-1 point)
Question 2
(A) Option A (1 point) (correct answer)
(B) Option B (-1 point)
- If a user chooses A and A, they would receive a quiz percentage score of 100% (4/4). This is because negative scores do not affect the total score available for the question, so the quiz possible total is 3+1=4.
- If a user chooses A and B, they would receive a percentage score of 50% (2 out of possible 4).
- If a user chooses B and B, they would receive a percentage score of 0%. Even with negative scoring, a quiz result will never be less than 0%.