Grading and quiz results
Grade written or uploaded answers by hand, override a total, and read the Quiz tab for pass rates, score distribution and the questions people miss most.
Automatic and manual grading
When someone submits, Formwork grades every question that has points and an answer key. Questions that cannot be graded automatically wait for you. Those are file uploads, signatures and addresses that carry points, and any question you marked Grade by hand.
A response with anything waiting shows a Needs grading badge, and its score stays partial until you finish.
Grading a response
Open the response from Responses, then Individual, or from the queue described below. Under each answer that carries points, editors and owners see a small row:
- Points, a number from 0 to the question's maximum, in steps of 0.5;
- Feedback to respondent, up to 500 characters, shown for hand-graded questions and questions not graded yet;
- a status: "Not graded yet", "Full marks" or "3 of 5".
In the Score panel on the right, Save grade saves all the points on the page and marks the response graded. Override total lets you enter a total that replaces the sum, capped at the maximum. Leave it empty to use the sum of the answers.
Points cannot go below zero or above what the question is worth. If two people grade the same response at once, saving is done under a lock so one person's feedback does not overwrite the other's.
Viewers can read scores but not change them.
The feedback and points are stored with the response. They show in the Responses views, the table and the exports. They do not change what the respondent saw on their own screen; see Timers, retakes and results.
The Quiz tab
When quiz mode is on, Responses gains a Quiz tab. It follows the same filters as the other views.
| Panel | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Mean score and Median score | The average and the middle score, as percentages of the maximum, across graded responses |
| Pass rate | The share of graded responses at or above the pass mark. Change Pass mark to any percentage; it starts at 60 |
| Awaiting grading | How many responses still need a hand-graded question |
| Score distribution | A histogram of scores as a percentage of the maximum |
| Percent correct by question | For each question, the share of people who answered it and got it right |
| Most missed | The five questions most often answered wrongly, among those answered at least three times |
| Manual grading queue | A list of responses waiting, with their automatic points so far and a Grade button |
The Table view has a Score column when a quiz is on, and exports include Score and Max score. Insights adds Average score by answer, which shows how people who picked each option scored overall.
Reading the quiz tab
Percent correct by question is the fastest way to find a question that is broken. If nearly nobody gets a question right, check the answer key first: for text questions, look at your accepted answers, because a spelling nobody thought of counts as wrong. If everybody gets it right, the question may be too easy to tell anyone apart.
Scores elsewhere
Scores are part of every response you retrieve:
- Webhook payloads and the REST API include
scoreandmax_score, and both arenullwhen nothing was scored. See Webhooks and Forms and responses endpoints. - The Quiz tab counts each attempt as a separate response when retakes are allowed.
Plans
Quiz mode and grading are one plan feature, checked when you publish. See Default plan limits.
Updated Sep 30, 2026