How to Make a Quiz in Google Forms: 2026 Step-by-Step Guide

Adele

May 19, 2026

How to Make a Quiz in Google Forms

If you teach, train, or run any kind of online assessment, learning how to make a quiz in Google Forms is one of the highest-leverage skills you can pick up in an afternoon. It is free, it grades multiple-choice questions automatically, it works on any device, and it integrates with Google Classroom out of the box.

This guide walks through the full process end to end - from creating a blank form, to turning it into a graded quiz, to releasing scores. It also covers the shortcut most teachers do not know: if your questions already exist in a PDF, Word document, or Google Doc, you do not have to retype them. You can import the whole thing in under 60 seconds with a tool like Formswrite.

Step 1: Open Google Forms and create a new form

Go to forms.google.com and sign in with your Google account. Click the blank-form template (the big plus icon) or pick a starter template from the gallery. You now have an "Untitled form" - give it a title that students will see, like "Chapter 4 Quiz: The Industrial Revolution," and add a short description below it.

If you are signed into a Google Workspace for Education account, you will also see options to link the form to a Google Classroom assignment. You can do that now or later - it is the same step either way.

Step 2: Turn your form into a quiz

This is the step most people miss on the first try. By default, a Google Form is a survey, not a quiz. To turn it into a quiz:

Click the gear icon (Settings) in the top right of the form editor.
Click the Quizzes tab.
Toggle "Make this a quiz" to on.

You will now see grading options. The two big decisions are:

Release grade: "Immediately after each submission" (students see their score right away) or "Later, after manual review" (you control when grades go out - useful for short-answer questions you want to review first).
Respondent can see: Missed questions, correct answers, and point values. Most teachers leave all three on for formative quizzes, and turn correct answers off for summative tests.

There is also a "Default quiz settings" subsection where you can set the default point value (usually 1) for every new question, so you do not have to set it manually each time.

Hit Save and you are now editing a quiz, not a survey.

Step 3: Add your quiz questions

Click the + button on the right-hand toolbar to add a question. Google Forms supports 11 question types - for quizzes you will mostly use:

Multiple choice - single correct answer, radio buttons. The default for most quizzes.
Checkboxes - multiple correct answers. Useful when more than one option is right.
Dropdown - same as multiple choice but as a dropdown menu (saves space).
Short answer - single line of text. Auto-graded if you set a correct answer.
Paragraph - long-form text. Always manually graded.

For each question, click "Answer key" in the bottom left of the question card, mark the correct answer(s), and assign a point value. Optionally add answer feedback that explains why an answer is correct or incorrect - this turns the quiz into a self-paced learning tool.

Shortcut: import your questions from a PDF or Doc instead of retyping

If you already have a worksheet, paper test, study guide, or textbook chapter with questions, do not retype them. Use Formswrite's Google Forms quiz generator to upload the file - PDF, Word, Google Doc, even a photo of a paper test - and it auto-extracts the questions, answer choices, and correct answers into a ready-to-edit Google Form. A 30-question test that would take an hour to retype is done in about 60 seconds.

Specific source-format guides if you need them:

PDF to Google Form - for digital and scanned PDFs (built-in OCR handles scanned).
Google Doc to Google Form - for documents already in Drive.
Convert Word to Google Form - for .docx files from Microsoft Word.
Import questions to Google Forms - for question banks in any format.

Step 4: Set the answer key, points, and feedback

For each question, the Answer key screen lets you:

Mark which option(s) are correct.
Assign a point value (1 point is standard, but you can weight harder questions higher).
Add per-answer feedback - a sentence that appears to students when they get that specific answer right or wrong.

Per-answer feedback is the single biggest underused feature of Google Forms quizzes. It is what turns a quiz from a grading instrument into a learning instrument: students who get question 5 wrong see "Remember, the answer is X because of Y" the moment they submit, rather than waiting for class the next day.

If you are looking at an existing form and cannot find the correct answers you set earlier, see where to find the answer key in Google Forms.

Step 5: Configure quiz behavior - locked mode, time limits, and shuffling

For higher-stakes quizzes, go back to Settings and look at:

Locked mode - only available for Google Workspace for Education accounts on managed Chromebooks. Students cannot open new tabs while taking the quiz. This is the closest thing to a proctored online exam Google Forms offers natively.
Limit to 1 response - requires students to sign in with a Google account; each can only submit once.
Edit after submit - leave off for tests.
Shuffle question order - randomizes for each student, reducing the chance they share answers.

Time limits in Google Forms are not built in natively - you will need a third-party add-on like Form Timer or Formfacade to add a countdown. For a more thorough comparison see Google's own help on locked mode.

Step 6: Send the quiz and collect responses

Click the Send button in the top right. You have four delivery options:

Email - send directly from Google Forms with student addresses.
Link - generate a short link; share via your LMS, chat, or class website.
Embed HTML - embed the form inside another page (a Notion doc, a Sites page, etc).
QR code - generate a QR code for the form and project it on a screen so students scan it from their phones. This is the fastest way to start a quiz with a room full of students.

Once students respond, the Responses tab shows individual submissions, score distribution, and per-question breakdowns. Click "Link to Sheets" at the top of the Responses tab to dump every submission into a Google Sheet for grade-book imports, conditional formatting, or pivot tables.

How to conduct an exam in Google Forms

If you specifically want to run a graded exam (not just an in-class quiz), the configuration is similar but with stricter settings:

Turn on Locked mode (Education accounts only) so students cannot leave the form.
Set Release grade to "Later, after manual review" - gives you time to review short answers.
Turn off "Respondent can see missed questions/correct answers" so students cannot screenshot the answer key.
Enable Limit to 1 response and Collect emails.
Enable Shuffle question order.
Pair with a time-limit add-on for a hard deadline.

A useful upgrade for high-stakes exams: build the question bank in a Google Doc or Word file (so it lives in your drive forever), then generate the Google Form from the document. That way the exam content is version-controlled in a Doc you can edit, while the live Form is reproducible from the source any time.

How to make a Google Form quiz in 60 seconds (the AI shortcut)

The slowest part of building a quiz is typing the questions. Skip that step entirely:

Open Formswrite's Google Forms quiz generator.
Upload your source - a PDF, Word doc, Google Doc, image, or even a scanned worksheet.
The AI extracts every question, answer choice, and correct answer, then publishes the result as a ready-to-edit Google Form in your own Drive.
Open the form, tweak anything you want, hit Send.

That is it. A 30-question quiz takes about 60 seconds end to end. The output is a normal Google Form - nothing locked in to FormsWrite - so you can still edit it, share it, and grade it inside Google Forms as usual.

Frequently asked questions

How do I create a quiz in Google Forms?

Open Google Forms, click the blank-form template, then go to Settings → Quizzes and toggle "Make this a quiz" on. Add your questions, click "Answer key" on each one to mark correct answers and assign point values, then click Send to share. If you already have questions in a PDF or Doc, you can skip the retyping entirely with Formswrite.

How do I make a Google Form a quiz?

The setting is hidden under the gear icon (top right of the form editor). Click it, switch to the Quizzes tab, and toggle "Make this a quiz" to on. Until you do this, your form is treated as a survey and will not auto-grade or show point values.

How do I conduct an exam in Google Forms?

Build the form, turn on quiz mode, then enable Locked mode (Workspace for Education accounts only), Limit to 1 response, Collect emails, and Shuffle question order. Set "Release grade" to "Later, after manual review" so students do not see the answer key on submit. For a time limit, you will need a third-party add-on like Form Timer.

Is Google Forms quiz free?

Yes. Quiz mode is included free with any Google account. There are no limits on the number of quizzes, questions, or responses. The Workspace for Education tier adds Locked mode and Originality Reports but is not required for normal quizzes.

Can I turn a PDF into a Google Form quiz?

Yes. Use a tool like Formswrite's PDF to Google Form converter. Upload the PDF, the AI extracts the questions and answer choices (it handles scanned PDFs too via OCR), and outputs a ready-to-edit Google Form. Faster than retyping, especially for tests with 20+ questions.

How do I add an answer key in Google Forms?

Inside the form editor, click any question. At the bottom left of the question card you will see "Answer key." Click it, mark the correct answer(s), assign a point value, and optionally add feedback that students see when they get the question right or wrong. You can only see this option after you have enabled quiz mode in Settings.

How long does it take to make a quiz in Google Forms?

A 10-question quiz built from scratch takes 15-25 minutes including answer keys. If you have the questions already in a document, using Formswrite drops that to about 60 seconds.

Can students see the correct answers after submitting a Google Forms quiz?

Only if you enable it. Go to Settings → Quizzes → "Respondent can see" and toggle "Correct answers" on or off. Most teachers leave it on for low-stakes practice quizzes and off for graded tests.

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