PressPrimer Quiz 2.2: Question Pools, Points & Pagination

Version 2.2 of PressPrimer Quiz is now available on WordPress.org! This release packs in several new features and a variety of quality of life improvements.

Here’s what’s new.

Question Pools

This is the feature we’re most excited about (and we’re confident you’ll love it too). You can now build quizzes with as many questions as you want but only show a certain number per attempt (without using dynamic question rules). Question pools are ideal for practice tests, certification prep, and any situation where you want retakes to feel fresh instead of repetitive. It can also help cut down on cheating.

Setup is easy. When editing a quiz, just go to the Settings tab and look for the new Question Pool section near the bottom. Turn on Limit questions per attempt and enter how many questions you want students to see. The pool size is displayed dynamically, so you always know how many questions are available.

Question selection happens when the user starts an attempt and it’s stored permanently. That means if a student pauses and resumes later (even from a different device), they will see the same questions in the same order. Scoring is of course calculated based on the questions students actually see in each attempt, and the pass percentage is applied to questions that users see only. On the results page, students will see a note that their questions were randomly selected from a larger pool.

Question pools work with both fixed and dynamic quizzes. For dynamic quizzes that pull questions from several banks, the dynamic rules get applied first, and then the question pool is selected from the combined result. In other words, the rules on the Rules tab determine which questions are eligible first, and the pool setting controls how many of those questions a student actually sees per attempt.

Points Per Question

You can now show point values with each question during the quiz and on the quiz results page. You’ll see a new Show Points per Question setting on the quiz settings page. This is especially useful for quizzes where questions have different weights. If some questions are worth more than others, showing the point values helps students make better decisions about where to focus their time.

Pagination for attempt history

If you have students who take the same quiz many times (such as practice tests, certification prep, etc.), the attempt history that gets shown on the quiz start page can get very long. In previous versions of PressPrimer Quiz, all previous attempts were loaded and shown to users. That’s not practical once you get past about 10 attempts.

With version 2.2, only the five most recent attempts are shown by default, and students will see a Show more button to view additional attempts. We also updated the [ppq_my_attempts] shortcode with a per_page attribute so you can choose how many listings users see per page (e.g. [ppq_my_attempts per_page=”15″]).

Improved Status page

To make site diagnostic information easier to read and share, the Status page under PressPrimer Quiz > Settings in /wp-admin/ has been redesigned with a new two-column layout. There’s also a new Copy System Status button that copies all details into your clipboard so you can easily paste it into an email to our support team if you ever need assistance.

Updating

If you’re already using PressPrimer Quiz, update to version 2.2 through your WordPress dashboard. Existing quizzes aren’t modified in any way and all new settings must be enabled to use them. If you haven’t tried PressPrimer Quiz yet, download it for free and give it a try!

Let us know how you’re using the new features and what you’d like to see next in the comments.