Import Quiz Questions to Moodle Using the Aiken Format

The Aiken format lets you create multiple-choice or true-false questions using a simple, human-readable format that you can save as a plain text file and import into a Moodle course.

Write Questions in the Aiken Format

  1. Write your questions in a word-processing application (e.g., MS Word) or a text editor such as Notepad (Windows) or Text Edit (Mac OS X), and format as follows:
    • The question must be all on one line.
    • Each answer must start with a single uppercase letter, followed by a period “.” or a right parenthesis “)”, then a space.
    • The answer line must immediately follow, starting with “ANSWER: ” (with a space after the colon), and then give the letter for the correct answer.
      Note: The word “ANSWER” and the answer letters (A,B,C etc.) must be capitalized as shown, otherwise the import will fail.
  2. Use Save As and save your questions as a .txt (plain text) file in UTF-8 format.

Example:


Once you have saved your text file, you can import your questions into the Moodle Question Bank:

  1. Log into Moodle and open the course where you will import questions
  2. Select Course Management (gear icon) at the top right of your course page  
  3. Choose More
  4. On the Course Management panel, under Question Bank, click Import.  The Import questions from file page will open
  5.  Select Aiken Format for the File format
  6. Click the General heading to expand the settings and for Import category, select a Category (or use Default for course)
  7. Under Import questions from file, drag and drop your .txt file onto the blue arrow in the Import box, or alternately, click Choose a file…. to browse for the .txt file on your computer
  8. Click Upload this file. You will see a page with the messages “Parsing questions from import file” and “importing (# of) question(s) from file,” with a list of the questions.
  9. Click Import
  10. Click Continue. Your Question Bank will open. You can now further edit the questions or include the questions in a quiz

More questions? Check out these resources:

Aiken format (multiple choice)

Import Questions


Modified from: UMASS