Moodle Quiz Settings: Everything Students Should Know (2026)

Moodle quiz settings are the options your teacher chooses on the quiz's settings page: Timing (open and close dates, time limit), Grade (attempts and grading method), Layout (questions per page, free or sequential navigation), Question behaviour (when you get feedback), Review options, Safe Exam Browser and Extra restrictions on attempts. Together they decide when you can start, how long you have, whether you can go back, and what you see afterwards. This guide goes through each group in the order Moodle shows them, with what it means for you as a student.

Last verified: October 12, 2026 against the official documentation linked below.

One note on versions: Moodle is open source and each school runs its own site, often with a custom theme, so labels and layout can vary slightly between Moodle 4.x, Moodle 5.x and MoodleCloud. The setting names below follow Moodle's official Quiz settings documentation.

Moodle Quiz Timing

The Timing section has three parts:

Open the quiz / Close the quiz. Before the open date, you can see the quiz introduction but not the questions. After the close date, you cannot start a new attempt. Moodle's FAQ adds that answers saved after closing are stored but you are not given credit for them.
Time limit. Off by default. When set, a countdown timer appears in the quiz navigation block. You can hide it, but it reappears when less than 100 seconds remain.
When time expires. Three options: Open attempts are submitted automatically (the default), There is a grace period when you can submit but not answer more questions, and Attempts must be submitted before time expires, or they are not counted.

Important: the close date beats the timer. If a quiz closes at 11:00 and has a 60-minute limit, a student who starts at 10:30 gets 30 minutes, not 60. City, University of London's Moodle quiz guide gives the same example for staff: a quiz open from 10 to 11 am with a 60-minute timer means students "won't have a full 60 minutes". Always start with the full time limit still available before the close date.

"When time expires" setting	What happens to your attempt	What to do
Open attempts are submitted automatically	Saved answers are submitted when the timer hits zero	Move between pages regularly so answers are saved
There is a grace period	You can still submit, but not change answers, during the grace period	Go to the summary page and submit immediately
Attempts must be submitted before time expires	An attempt that is not submitted in time is not counted	Click "Submit all and finish" with time to spare

Attempt Settings

In the Grade section, the teacher sets Attempts allowed (from one to unlimited) and a Grading method used when you have more than one attempt:

Highest grade: your best attempt counts.
Average grade: all attempts are averaged.
First grade: only your first attempt counts.
Last grade: your most recent attempt counts.

Three related settings change how retakes work:

Grade to pass. A passing grade that can be tied to activity completion, so the next activity or module may stay locked until you reach it.
Each attempt builds on last. If set to Yes, a new attempt starts with the same questions and your previous answers already filled in, so you only fix what was wrong. If No, each attempt starts fresh.
Enforced delay between attempts (under Extra restrictions). The teacher can require a wait, from seconds to weeks, after the first attempt and between later attempts, so you have time to review before trying again.

Multiple attempts with "Highest grade" are an invitation to learn: treat the first attempt as a diagnostic, review what you missed with the course materials, then retake.

Navigation and Layout

The Layout section sets New page (how many questions appear per page, from every question to all on one page) and, under "Show more", the Navigation method:

Free: you can move between pages in any order using the quiz navigation block and the Previous/Next buttons.
Sequential: Moodle's docs say this prevents students from returning to earlier questions or skipping ahead. Once you click Next, the previous page is closed.

On a sequential quiz, answer every question on the page before moving on, and do not use the browser back button. Teachers can also add section headings, which appear in the navigation block and help you see where each topic starts.

Taking a Moodle quiz, step by step

University help desks, such as LSU Alexandria's Moodle exam guide, describe the student flow in the same way:

Open the quiz and read the introduction, which shows the time limit, close date and attempts allowed. Click Attempt quiz, then Start attempt to confirm. A timed quiz starts its timer now.
Answer the questions. Use Flag question to mark ones you want to revisit; flagged questions show a red corner in the navigation block.
On the last page, click Finish attempt. This opens the Summary of attempt page, which lists every question's status and highlights unanswered and flagged ones.
Use Return to attempt if you need to change something (not possible on sequential quizzes for closed pages).
Click Submit all and finish and confirm. The LSUA guide warns that if you do not, your exam is not turned in, which could result in no score.

The most common mistake on Moodle is stopping at the summary page. Until you click Submit all and finish, the attempt stays "In progress", and depending on the "When time expires" setting it may be submitted automatically, kept in a grace period, or not counted at all.

Question Behavior

The How questions behave setting decides when you get feedback and whether you can retry. Moodle's Question behaviours page describes each one:

Behaviour	How it works for you
Deferred feedback	You answer every question and submit the whole quiz before anything is graded. The standard choice for graded quizzes.
Immediate feedback	You check each answer during the attempt and see if it is right, but you can submit only once per question and cannot change it afterwards.
Interactive with multiple tries	After a wrong answer you get a hint and can try again, usually for fewer points each time.
Adaptive mode / Adaptive mode (no penalties)	Several attempts at each question before moving on, with or without a penalty for wrong tries.
Deferred or Immediate feedback with CBM	Certainty-based marking: you also say how sure you are, and the grade rewards confident correct answers and penalises confident wrong ones.

If the quiz uses CBM, guessing with high confidence is costly; choose a lower certainty when you are unsure. With Interactive or Immediate feedback, teachers can also turn on Allow redo within an attempt, which lets you try a different version of a question you got wrong. Practice quizzes often use these behaviours because they turn mistakes into feedback straight away.

Question Randomization

Moodle has three separate layers of randomisation, documented on the Building Quiz page:

Random questions. The teacher adds "a random question" from a question bank category (optionally filtered by tag). Each student gets a different draw, and the same question never appears twice in one quiz.
Shuffle question order. A Shuffle checkbox on the quiz editing page randomises the order, and can be set per section so some sections are shuffled and others are not.
Shuffle within questions. A quiz setting under Question behaviour that shuffles the parts of multi-part questions, such as the choices in multiple choice or the items in matching, when the question itself also allows shuffling.

Calculated questions can add a fourth layer: numbers in the question are generated from a dataset, so your version of a maths problem may differ from a classmate's. The practical consequence is the same throughout: learn the method, not the position of the answer.

Review Options

Review options decide what you see on the review page, at four moments: During the attempt, Immediately after the attempt (within two minutes of submitting), Later, while the quiz is still open and After the quiz is closed. For each moment, the teacher ticks items such as Whether correct, Marks, Specific feedback, General feedback, Right answer and Overall feedback.

This is why the answers you could see right after submitting sometimes disappear a few minutes later, and reappear after the close date. Because review is a topic of its own, we cover each item and timing in detail in Moodle quiz answers: how review options work.

Related: the Overall feedback section lets teachers write a message for each grade band (for example 80–100% "Great work", below 50% "Review chapter 3"). If you see such a message, it is configured, not personal.

Extra restrictions, overrides and accommodations

The Extra restrictions on attempts section can stop a quiz from opening:

Require password. You must enter a password before starting; common for in-class quizzes.
Require network address. The quiz opens only from specified IP addresses or ranges, for example a campus lab. If it works on campus but not at home, this is why.
Enforced delay between attempts. A countdown before your next attempt.
Browser security. An advanced option that opens the quiz in a full-screen pop-up with some JavaScript restrictions. It is a light restriction, not a lockdown browser.

For accommodations, Moodle uses overrides. According to the Quiz FAQ, teachers open User overrides (or Group overrides) in the quiz administration menu and change dates, times or the number of attempts for selected students. If you have an extra-time accommodation, check the quiz introduction before you start: the time limit shown there should already include it.

Safe Exam Browser (SEB)

Moodle has built-in support for Safe Exam Browser, which Moodle's documentation describes as open-source software for Windows, macOS and iOS. When the teacher sets Require the use of Safe Exam Browser, you cannot attempt the quiz in a normal browser. You install SEB on your device, then use the quiz page's Launch Safe Exam Browser button or Download configuration link to open the quiz inside it.

According to Moodle's docs, SEB shows no address bar, can disable back, forward and reload, cannot be closed until the test is submitted, blocks switching to other applications by default, blocks shortcuts such as Alt+Tab, disables screenshots and the right-click menu, and clears the clipboard when it starts and quits. Install and test it before the exam day; if your device is not supported (for example a Chromebook or Linux laptop), tell your teacher early. Most everyday Moodle quizzes do not require SEB; it is mainly used for exams.

What Moodle logs during a quiz

Moodle records more than students often expect, but less than rumours suggest:

Recorded and visible to teachers	Not part of Moodle's quiz records
Every attempt, with grade and per-question marks (Grades report)	Your screen or webcam (unless a proctoring plugin is used)
The responses you gave (Responses report)	A list of the other tabs or applications you had open
Attempt start, completion and time taken	Your browser history
Course and activity logs: the time, the user, the pages viewed and actions, and the IP address for each entry	Questions you flagged for yourself (shown only in your attempt)

Moodle's Logs documentation confirms that teachers can generate course and activity logs showing who accessed what and when, with an IP address for each entry. Sites can also add plugins, including proctoring tools, that record more. The right-hand column is a description of Moodle's own reports, not a guarantee that nothing else is visible; for the browser side, see what professors can see about browser extensions. The practical rule is the same on every platform: follow the quiz instructions and your course's academic-integrity policy.

Common problems and what to do

"This quiz is not currently available": check the open date, password and network address restrictions.
Your timer was shorter than the time limit: the close date arrived before the time limit ran out.
Your attempt shows "Never submitted": you did not click Submit all and finish and the quiz required submission before time expired. Moodle's FAQ says such attempts cannot be retrieved, so contact your teacher immediately.
You lost connection: log back in and continue the attempt; answers saved before the drop are kept. Tell your teacher on a timed quiz.
You cannot see correct answers: that is the review options; see the review options guide.

Studying with Moodle quizzes and AI tools

Moodle's quiz engine was designed with learning in mind: interactive behaviours with hints, adaptive retries, attempts that build on the last one, and overall feedback by grade band. When your teacher publishes practice quizzes with these settings, use them as retrieval practice and take notes on every question you miss.

An AI study assistant can add an explanation where the quiz gives only a mark. QuizAce is a Chrome extension that reads the question on a Moodle page, on MoodleCloud or self-hosted sites, including images, and explains the answer so you can check your reasoning. Use it on practice quizzes, homework and review. On graded quizzes, follow your teacher's rules and your institution's academic-integrity policy, and do not use outside tools on quizzes that require Safe Exam Browser or proctoring. See our guide to studying with AI tools, and the matching settings guides for Canvas, Brightspace and Google Forms.

Turn practice quizzes into understanding. QuizAce explains questions on Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard, Brightspace, Google Forms and Microsoft Forms. Start with 5 free questions a day, no card needed. See pricing and supported platforms.

Sources

FAQ

Why did my Moodle quiz give me less time than the time limit?

The quiz close date came before your time limit would have ended. The time you get is whichever is shorter: the time limit or the time left until the quiz closes.

What happens if I don't click "Submit all and finish"?

It depends on the "When time expires" setting: the attempt may be submitted automatically, held in a grace period for you to submit, or not counted. Always submit from the Summary of attempt page.

Can I go back to previous questions in Moodle?

Yes if the navigation method is Free. If it is Sequential, Moodle prevents you from returning to earlier questions or skipping ahead.

How many attempts do I get on a Moodle quiz?

Whatever the teacher set in Attempts allowed, from one to unlimited. The quiz introduction shows it, along with the grading method (highest, average, first or last).

How do I get extra time on a Moodle quiz?

Teachers give extra time with a user or group override in the quiz administration menu. Contact your teacher or disability services before the quiz opens.

Do I need Safe Exam Browser for every Moodle quiz?

No. Only quizzes where the teacher selected "Require the use of Safe Exam Browser". The quiz page tells you, and offers a button or configuration file to launch it.

Last verified: October 12, 2026 against the official documentation linked below.

Moodle Quiz Timing

The Timing section has three parts:

Open the quiz / Close the quiz. Before the open date, you can see the quiz introduction but not the questions. After the close date, you cannot start a new attempt. Moodle's FAQ adds that answers saved after closing are stored but you are not given credit for them.
Time limit. Off by default. When set, a countdown timer appears in the quiz navigation block. You can hide it, but it reappears when less than 100 seconds remain.
When time expires. Three options: Open attempts are submitted automatically (the default), There is a grace period when you can submit but not answer more questions, and Attempts must be submitted before time expires, or they are not counted.

"When time expires" setting	What happens to your attempt	What to do
Open attempts are submitted automatically	Saved answers are submitted when the timer hits zero	Move between pages regularly so answers are saved
There is a grace period	You can still submit, but not change answers, during the grace period	Go to the summary page and submit immediately
Attempts must be submitted before time expires	An attempt that is not submitted in time is not counted	Click "Submit all and finish" with time to spare

Attempt Settings

In the Grade section, the teacher sets Attempts allowed (from one to unlimited) and a Grading method used when you have more than one attempt:

Highest grade: your best attempt counts.
Average grade: all attempts are averaged.
First grade: only your first attempt counts.
Last grade: your most recent attempt counts.

Three related settings change how retakes work:

Grade to pass. A passing grade that can be tied to activity completion, so the next activity or module may stay locked until you reach it.
Each attempt builds on last. If set to Yes, a new attempt starts with the same questions and your previous answers already filled in, so you only fix what was wrong. If No, each attempt starts fresh.
Enforced delay between attempts (under Extra restrictions). The teacher can require a wait, from seconds to weeks, after the first attempt and between later attempts, so you have time to review before trying again.

Multiple attempts with "Highest grade" are an invitation to learn: treat the first attempt as a diagnostic, review what you missed with the course materials, then retake.

Navigation and Layout

The Layout section sets New page (how many questions appear per page, from every question to all on one page) and, under "Show more", the Navigation method:

Free: you can move between pages in any order using the quiz navigation block and the Previous/Next buttons.
Sequential: Moodle's docs say this prevents students from returning to earlier questions or skipping ahead. Once you click Next, the previous page is closed.

Taking a Moodle quiz, step by step

University help desks, such as LSU Alexandria's Moodle exam guide, describe the student flow in the same way:

Open the quiz and read the introduction, which shows the time limit, close date and attempts allowed. Click Attempt quiz, then Start attempt to confirm. A timed quiz starts its timer now.
Answer the questions. Use Flag question to mark ones you want to revisit; flagged questions show a red corner in the navigation block.
On the last page, click Finish attempt. This opens the Summary of attempt page, which lists every question's status and highlights unanswered and flagged ones.
Use Return to attempt if you need to change something (not possible on sequential quizzes for closed pages).
Click Submit all and finish and confirm. The LSUA guide warns that if you do not, your exam is not turned in, which could result in no score.

Question Behavior

The How questions behave setting decides when you get feedback and whether you can retry. Moodle's Question behaviours page describes each one:

Behaviour	How it works for you
Deferred feedback	You answer every question and submit the whole quiz before anything is graded. The standard choice for graded quizzes.
Immediate feedback	You check each answer during the attempt and see if it is right, but you can submit only once per question and cannot change it afterwards.
Interactive with multiple tries	After a wrong answer you get a hint and can try again, usually for fewer points each time.
Adaptive mode / Adaptive mode (no penalties)	Several attempts at each question before moving on, with or without a penalty for wrong tries.
Deferred or Immediate feedback with CBM	Certainty-based marking: you also say how sure you are, and the grade rewards confident correct answers and penalises confident wrong ones.

Question Randomization

Moodle has three separate layers of randomisation, documented on the Building Quiz page:

Random questions. The teacher adds "a random question" from a question bank category (optionally filtered by tag). Each student gets a different draw, and the same question never appears twice in one quiz.
Shuffle question order. A Shuffle checkbox on the quiz editing page randomises the order, and can be set per section so some sections are shuffled and others are not.
Shuffle within questions. A quiz setting under Question behaviour that shuffles the parts of multi-part questions, such as the choices in multiple choice or the items in matching, when the question itself also allows shuffling.

Review Options

Extra restrictions, overrides and accommodations

The Extra restrictions on attempts section can stop a quiz from opening:

Require password. You must enter a password before starting; common for in-class quizzes.
Require network address. The quiz opens only from specified IP addresses or ranges, for example a campus lab. If it works on campus but not at home, this is why.
Enforced delay between attempts. A countdown before your next attempt.
Browser security. An advanced option that opens the quiz in a full-screen pop-up with some JavaScript restrictions. It is a light restriction, not a lockdown browser.

Safe Exam Browser (SEB)

What Moodle logs during a quiz

Moodle records more than students often expect, but less than rumours suggest:

Recorded and visible to teachers	Not part of Moodle's quiz records
Every attempt, with grade and per-question marks (Grades report)	Your screen or webcam (unless a proctoring plugin is used)
The responses you gave (Responses report)	A list of the other tabs or applications you had open
Attempt start, completion and time taken	Your browser history
Course and activity logs: the time, the user, the pages viewed and actions, and the IP address for each entry	Questions you flagged for yourself (shown only in your attempt)

Common problems and what to do

"This quiz is not currently available": check the open date, password and network address restrictions.
Your timer was shorter than the time limit: the close date arrived before the time limit ran out.
Your attempt shows "Never submitted": you did not click Submit all and finish and the quiz required submission before time expired. Moodle's FAQ says such attempts cannot be retrieved, so contact your teacher immediately.
You lost connection: log back in and continue the attempt; answers saved before the drop are kept. Tell your teacher on a timed quiz.
You cannot see correct answers: that is the review options; see the review options guide.

Studying with Moodle quizzes and AI tools

Sources

FAQ

Why did my Moodle quiz give me less time than the time limit?

The quiz close date came before your time limit would have ended. The time you get is whichever is shorter: the time limit or the time left until the quiz closes.

What happens if I don't click "Submit all and finish"?

It depends on the "When time expires" setting: the attempt may be submitted automatically, held in a grace period for you to submit, or not counted. Always submit from the Summary of attempt page.

Can I go back to previous questions in Moodle?

Yes if the navigation method is Free. If it is Sequential, Moodle prevents you from returning to earlier questions or skipping ahead.

How many attempts do I get on a Moodle quiz?

Whatever the teacher set in Attempts allowed, from one to unlimited. The quiz introduction shows it, along with the grading method (highest, average, first or last).

How do I get extra time on a Moodle quiz?

Teachers give extra time with a user or group override in the quiz administration menu. Contact your teacher or disability services before the quiz opens.

Do I need Safe Exam Browser for every Moodle quiz?

No. Only quizzes where the teacher selected "Require the use of Safe Exam Browser". The quiz page tells you, and offers a button or configuration file to launch it.

Moodle Quiz Timing

Attempt Settings

Navigation and Layout

Taking a Moodle quiz, step by step

Question Behavior

Question Randomization

Review Options

Extra restrictions, overrides and accommodations

Safe Exam Browser (SEB)

What Moodle logs during a quiz

Common problems and what to do

Studying with Moodle quizzes and AI tools

Sources

FAQ

Why did my Moodle quiz give me less time than the time limit?

What happens if I don't click "Submit all and finish"?

Can I go back to previous questions in Moodle?

How many attempts do I get on a Moodle quiz?

How do I get extra time on a Moodle quiz?

Do I need Safe Exam Browser for every Moodle quiz?

Ready to ace your next quiz?

Moodle Quiz Timing

Attempt Settings

Navigation and Layout

Taking a Moodle quiz, step by step

Question Behavior

Question Randomization

Review Options

Extra restrictions, overrides and accommodations

Safe Exam Browser (SEB)

What Moodle logs during a quiz

Common problems and what to do

Studying with Moodle quizzes and AI tools

Sources

FAQ

Why did my Moodle quiz give me less time than the time limit?

What happens if I don't click "Submit all and finish"?

Can I go back to previous questions in Moodle?

How many attempts do I get on a Moodle quiz?

How do I get extra time on a Moodle quiz?

Do I need Safe Exam Browser for every Moodle quiz?

Ready to ace your next quiz?