How it works

1. Copy any public article URL (news, blog post, Wikipedia, encyclopedia entry).
2. Open the quiz builder and paste the URL.
3. Pick number of questions, difficulty, and question types.
4. SimpleQuizMaker extracts the readable article text and generates a quiz draft.
5. Review the draft. You can regenerate it, or edit individual questions after saving.
6. Share the quiz link.

What works well

· News articles — current events comprehension for civics, journalism, or ESL classes.
· Wikipedia entries — encyclopedia-style content for background knowledge quizzes.
· Blog posts and essays — long-form thought pieces for analysis classes.
· Government / official reports — public documents in HTML.
· Educational sites — Khan Academy text content, BBC Bitesize, Britannica.

What does NOT work

· Paywalled content (we cannot bypass paywalls).
· JavaScript-heavy single-page apps with no server-rendered text.
· PDF documents on a URL — use Create quiz from PDF instead.
· Login-required content (Slack archives, internal wikis, etc.).
· Content from private internal networks (SSRF protection blocks them).

Use cases for teachers

Current events units

Each week, share a news article URL with your class and assign the auto-generated quiz. Students get reading comprehension practice; you get a per-student record of who engaged.

News literacy lessons

Generate quizzes from articles in both biased and balanced outlets — discuss how the quiz questions differ based on framing.

ESL reading comprehension

Pick level-appropriate articles (Reuters or AP for B2+, Britannica simplified for B1). The auto-generated quiz tests both vocabulary and comprehension. See ESL quizzes for adult learners.

Background knowledge before class

Assign a Wikipedia entry on a topic + the quiz as pre-class homework. Use class time for discussion and application, not introduction.

Best practices

Pre-check the article

Open the URL yourself first. If the article uses a lot of images or video to convey meaning, the text-only extraction may miss key content.

Cite the source on the quiz

For news quizzes, include the article URL in the quiz description so students can re-read after taking the quiz. Builds source-evaluation habits.

Refresh weekly

News goes stale. Set yourself a weekly cadence and regenerate from new articles rather than reusing.

Privacy & security

We fetch public HTTP and HTTPS URLs, with SSRF protection — internal network addresses, cloud metadata endpoints, and local services are blocked. We do not store the original article content; only the generated quiz lives in your SimpleQuizMaker account.

Create a Quiz From a Website URL