Question Banks

Overview

Question Banks help you organize exam questions by topic and maintain the uniformity of questions used in multiple exams. Using a Question Bank, you can enter questions once and use them in multiple exams. A flexible but powerful three-level classification scheme allows you to classify both existing and new questions. Question can be classified twice which means they can be a part of two different workflows.

There is only one classification/category list no matter how many Question Banks are created.

You must have Manage Content permission to manage Question Banks.

Getting Started with Question Banks

The best way to get started is to do the following in the specified order:

1. Create classifications

2. Create your Question Bank

3. Add questions to your Question Bank

Create Classifications

There are three levels of classifications of questions: Topic, Objective, and Sub-Objective.

Path: Campus Home > Question Banks > Add New

1. Click +Add new topic

2. Enter the Name of the first Topic

3. Click Save

4. Click the + to the right of the topic you just created and enter an Objective for that topic

5. Click Save (a dropdown arrow will appear to the left of the first Topic)

6. Click the dropdown arrow to add another level

7. Click the + to the right of the new Objective name

8. Enter the Name of a Sub-Objective

9. Click Close

Tip: Questions in a Question Bank cannot be added to an exam unless they are classified.

You can set up categories and classify questions without creating a Question Bank. Just know that this will create extra work for you because you will have to go back into those questions and assign them to a Question Bank when you want to use them.

Create a Question Bank

You must create a question bank prior to adding questions to it.  

Path: Campus Home > Settings > Question Banks

1. Select Add Question Bank

2. Enter a title

3. Click Add

Add Questions to a Question Bank

There are two ways to add questions into a Question Bank:

• Add the question to the Question Bank from within an exam

• Create the question directly in the Question Bank

Add Questions to a Question Bank from an Exam

To add a question to a Question Bank from within an exam, the question must have already been saved to the exam.

1. Open the exam you want to work with

2. Open the question you want to add to a Question Bank

3. Using the Classification dropdowns, select at least one classification for the question

4. Select the Question Bank you want to add the question to from the Question Bank dropdown

5. Add more questions to the Question Bank if desired and click Done when finished

Creating Questions in a Question Bank

Follow these steps to create questions in a Question Bank.  

Path: Campus Home > Settings > Question Banks

1. Choose Manage Question Banks

2. Choose the Question Bank you want to work with

3. Click +Questions in the upper left of the screen

4. Create your question in the normal manner

5. Using the Classification dropdowns, select at least one classification for the question

6. Click Done when finished

Finding Questions in a Question Bank

The Question Bank is equipped with a powerful search tool that searches the text of the questions in the Question Bank (not including the answers).

The Question Bank search tool can search all of the questions at one time (including uncategorized questions) or search only a specific category.  However, the search tool only searches ONE question bank at a time.  It does not search over multiple question banks, so you would need to search each bank if you have more than one.

Pulling Questions from a Question Bank into an Exam

To pull questions from a Question Bank into an exam:

1. Open the exam you want to work with

2. Click + Questions

3. Select Question Bank Pull from the Question Type dropdown

4. Choose the Question Bank you want to pull questions from in the Search Question Bank dropdown

5. Choose the Classification that represents the topic, objective, or sub-objective of the questions you want to use

6. Click Run Filter to display the questions that meet your criteria

7. Choose one of the following options:

   • Randomly select questions from the pool of questions that meet your criteria when the exam is generated

   • Add selected question(s) to this exam

8. If you choose Randomly select questions, you can go on to add other classifications of questions to the exam or click Done now

9. If you choose Add selected questions, check boxes will display by the available questions

10. Choose your questions you want to add and you can go on to add other classifications of questions to the exam or click Done now

Specifically selected and randomly selected Question Bank questions appear differently on an exam when you are creating or editing it.

Editing and Deleting Questions

Whether you edit a question from within an exam or from within the Question Bank, the edits will populate to all exams in which the question appears.

When deleting a question, if you delete from within an exam, you only delete that one instance of the question. If you delete a question from within a Question Bank, however, you delete it from all the exams it is being used by (in addition to deleting it from the Question Bank).

For those using multiple Question Banks: Once you have assigned a question to a Question Bank, you cannot move it to a different Question Bank. This is not possible because, once a question is in a Question Bank, it may be populated out to multiple exams and moving it would “break” the links between the question and the exams. Instead, you should delete the question from the first Question Bank and then recreate it in the new one (and then pull it back into the appropriate exams).

Creating a Spanish Language Question Bank

Like exams, checklists, and some other content types on CrunchTime! TalentLink, you can make a Spanish language version of your Question Bank.

1. Open the English language version of your Question Bank

2. Click the circle/plus sign icon to the right of the word English (upper left)

3. The Spanish Question Bank tab opens

4. Create questions just like you did in the English side of the Question Bank

5. Click Done to save your work (Done saves and closes both versions of the Question Bank)

When the Spanish tab opens, you will see that the title is the same as the title you established for the English language version and it cannot be changed because it really is all one Question Bank. In addition, you will see that Spanish is pre-selected in the Language field.

Caution: You must have at least one English language question in your Question Bank before saving it. A question Bank without at least one English question will not save properly.

When creating a Spanish language exam, the options in the Question Bank dropdown, and in the question selection field will be for the Spanish language versions of your Question Banks and questions.