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Playing a quiz: modes, timers and scoring

Every quiz on QuizzyApp is timed and scored, and every attempt ends with a question-by-question review. The details — which mode you are in, how the clock runs, how a score is worked out — are set by the quiz's author, so this guide explains what each setting means for you as a player.

Finding a quiz

Explore lists quizzes by subject and topic, with tabs for what is new and what was most played this week, and a search box that covers quizzes, collections and topics. A quiz's page shows its description, author, question count, difficulty, rating, play count and success rate. If the author has switched on previews, you also see the first quarter of the questions with their options — never the answers — so you can judge the level before you start. Paid quizzes show their price on this page, and nothing is charged until you confirm.

The three modes

Quiz mode is always available: timed, scored, and the only mode that earns XP and counts on leaderboards. Authors can also offer two learning modes:

• Revision — answer each question and get feedback immediately, with the author's explanation where one was written.
• Preview — browse the questions and answers without playing at all, for a last look before an exam.

Neither learning mode affects your score, XP or weak-topic tracking. If a quiz offers only Quiz mode, the author chose to keep it that way.

How the clock runs

An author picks one of two timer modes.

Per question. Each question has its own limit — anywhere from 15 seconds to a couple of minutes. When time runs out the question is marked unanswered and the next one appears. Some quizzes are "flip-through": one shot per question and no going back. Others let you change your answer before moving on; the author decides.

Whole quiz. One countdown for the entire attempt. You can move freely between questions, revisit any of them and change answers until you submit or the clock reaches zero.

On a phone, the app holds the screen awake during an attempt so it does not switch off mid-question. Short interruptions — a call, a notification — are forgiven; being away long enough to look something up is not: it counts as a strike, and three strikes submit the attempt. See Exam mode and fair play.

How the score is worked out

By default your percentage is simply correct answers divided by total questions. Authors can switch on speed scoring, which rewards fast correct answers:

• With per-question timers, a correct answer is worth 1 point plus up to 0.5 more depending on how much of the time limit was left. Answering instantly scores 1.5; answering on the buzzer scores 1. The percentage is your total out of the maximum possible.
• With a whole-quiz timer, your correct-answer percentage is multiplied by up to 1.5 according to how much of the overall time you had left when you submitted.

Speed scoring only ever changes the displayed percentage. It never changes XP.

XP

Every finished Quiz-mode attempt earns between 5 and 20 XP, based only on how many you got right: everything correct is 20, everything wrong is 5, and an attempt you never answered a question in earns nothing. Speed does not enter into it, so a careful attempt is never punished. XP feeds the monthly and all-time leaderboards and your profile statistics.

After the attempt

The result sheet shows your score, the number correct, incorrect and unanswered, and the XP earned. From there, open the review to walk back through every question with your answer, the correct answer and the author's explanation where there is one. This is the part worth spending time on: the point of a quiz is not the number, it is finding out which things you thought you knew.

Behind the scenes, each question is tagged with a topic, and your accuracy per topic is updated after every attempt. The topics you keep losing marks on surface on Home as weak topics, each with drill quizzes to practise them. Details in Progress: XP, streaks, leaderboards and weak topics.

Leaving partway, retaking, saving

• Leaving partway. An unfinished attempt is saved and shown on Home so you can resume it later.
• Retaking. You can replay any quiz as often as you like. Each attempt is recorded in your play history.
• Saving for offline. Premium members can save a quiz from its page in the Android or iOS app and play it with no signal; results sync when you are back online. Paid quizzes must be unlocked first.

Ratings, reviews and reporting

Each quiz has a rating and a review sheet — open it from the tile on the quiz page to read what other players said or to leave your own. If a question is wrong, use the report option on the quiz rather than a review: reports go to the author and to us, and we act ourselves where the content breaks the Community Guidelines.

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