Creating a Quiz
Generate a quiz from a topic, a PDF, an image, a Word document, a YouTube video, or an article URL.
SimpleQuizMaker turns source material into a graded quiz in one step. You are not writing questions by hand — you describe or upload the material, and AI builds multiple-choice, true/false, short-answer, or fill-in-the-blank questions from it.
Six ways to start a quiz
The Quiz Builder has one generation flow with six input types:
| Input | What it needs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Topic | A subject in plain text ("Cell biology", "The French Revolution") | Works with no upload at all |
| A PDF file | Text is extracted automatically | |
| Image | A photo or screenshot of notes, a textbook page, a diagram | Handled with vision, not OCR alone — handwriting and diagrams both work reasonably well |
| Word document | A .docx file | Same text-extraction path as PDF |
| YouTube video | A public video URL | Reads the video's own captions — a video with no captions can't be used |
| Article URL | A link to a blog post or news article | Reads the visible article text, not the whole page |
Uploads, YouTube, and URL ingestion require a signed-in account — quiz text from any of those needs to be fetched and parsed, which anonymous requests can't do safely. The topic tab is the exception: anyone can try it without an account.
Try before you sign up
Type a topic on the homepage widget and press Generate Quiz without signing in, and you get a real two-question preview built from that exact topic — not a mockup. Answer both, see which ones you got right, then create a free account to get the full question set on the same topic. The account you create carries the topic straight into the full builder, so you don't retype it.
This preview is rate-limited per visitor, so if it's temporarily unavailable, signing up gets you straight to full generation with no limit tied to that.
Choosing difficulty, question count, and question types
Once signed in, the builder lets you set:
- Difficulty: easy, medium, or hard — changes how much the questions lean on inference versus straight recall
- Question count: how many questions to generate. Free accounts are capped at 10 per quiz; paid accounts can go up to 100
- Question types: multiple choice, true/false, short answer, fill in the blank — pick one or mix several
Quiz settings
Before you save a generated quiz — and any time afterwards under Edit quiz → Settings — you can set how it behaves for the people taking it:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Shuffle question order | Each participant gets the questions in a different order |
| Shuffle answer options | Multiple-choice options appear in a random order for each participant (true/false always stays True, False) |
| Answers | Show the correct answer after each question, or only on the results screen |
| Time limit | 5 to 60 minutes; the quiz submits itself when time runs out |
| Ask for the participant's name | Everyone must enter a name before starting, so your Inbox shows real names |
| Accepting responses | Turn off to close the quiz — the link still opens, but nobody can start it |
| Stop accepting responses on | An optional date and time after which the quiz closes by itself |
| Confirmation message | Your own text, shown to every participant on their results screen |
| Email me when someone responds | One email per submission, to your account address |
Every one of these can be changed later; only the questions themselves need regenerating.
Math, science, and figures
Quizzes on algebra, geometry, calculus, physics, chemistry, or statistics come out with real notation, not plain text: fractions, roots, integrals, limits, matrices, systems of equations, chemical formulas, and degree signs render as typeset math everywhere — the builder preview, while taking the quiz, on the results and review screens, in the Inbox, on the print page, and in the mobile app. Questions that need a drawing get one: a labelled triangle or circle, a pair of angles, a function on a coordinate plane, a number line with shaded intervals, or a small data table, drawn by SimpleQuizMaker from the AI's description so it stays crisp at any size and prints cleanly. Most questions have no figure — one appears only where the question refers to it ("In the figure above…"), and you can remove it from Edit quiz if it isn't needed.
Exports keep the notation too: the Word export writes real, editable Word equations and embeds figures as images; the Google Forms export, which has no equation support, writes the notation as plain Unicode (x², ½, π) and adds each figure as an image before its question.
For typed answers (short answer and fill in the blank), the expected answer is always plain keyboard text — "2", "x = 3", "3/4" — so students never have to type notation to be marked correct.
What happens after generation
A generated quiz is private to you until you choose to share it. From the quiz page you can:
- Take it yourself to check the questions before sharing
- Share it with a link, QR code, or directly to Google Classroom (see the sharing guide)
- Make a copy — a private, independent duplicate with every question and setting carried over and zero responses, handy for reusing a quiz with a second class or as a template. The copy opens straight in the editor.
- Print or export it as a PDF, Word document, or Google Forms quiz (paid plans — see the export guide)
- Turn it into flashcards for spaced-repetition review
Monthly quota
Every plan has a monthly quiz-generation limit that resets at the start of each calendar month. The free plan includes 5 generations a month with up to 10 questions each; the paid Student plan raises that to 25 generations a month with up to 100 questions each. See the Plans & Quotas guide for the full breakdown.
If generation fails
- "Topic too narrow" / sparse result — the AI couldn't find enough distinct facts to build the requested number of questions. Broaden the topic or lower the question count.
- Rate limited — you're generating quizzes faster than the safety limit allows. Wait a minute and try again.
- Quota reached — you've used your plan's monthly generations. Upgrade or wait for the reset date shown on your dashboard.
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