Add questions faster

Writing every question by hand is the slow way. A question bank can also take questions you’ve already written in another bank, a whole spreadsheet of them, or a first draft written by AI from a short description (and your own notes, if you attach them). Whichever way, the questions land in the bank you have open, where you check and edit them like any other. To make a bank and write questions yourself, see Create a question bank.

In this video · 2:25

1. 0:00Clone from another bank
2. 0:39Import from a file
3. 1:17Generate with AI
4. 2:02Check what it wrote

Read the narration

1. 0:05Three ways to fill a question bank faster: copy questions you already have, import them from a spreadsheet, or let AI write a first draft.
2. 0:15Click Add question. Its second group is Add several at once.
3. 0:21Click Clone questions, and pick the bank to copy from.
4. 0:26Tick the questions you want. In a long bank, search or Filter by type.
5. 0:32Click Clone. The originals stay where they are.
6. 0:36The three questions are now in this bank, to use or edit.
7. 0:41Next, Import from file. It takes an Excel or CSV file of up to 500 questions.
8. 0:48Start from the Excel template: one question per row, and the first row names the columns.
9. 0:55Fill it in, then drop your file here, or click Choose file.
10. 1:00LessonQ lists every question it found, with its answer.
11. 1:04A row with a problem can’t be imported yet. Click it to fix it here, or fix the file.
12. 1:12Click Import, and the rest join the bank.
13. 1:17Now open Generate with AI.
14. 1:21Describe what to test, as you would to a colleague.
15. 1:30You can attach your notes or a chapter as Reference files, and the questions follow them.
16. 1:36Then choose how many questions, which types, the difficulty and the language.
17. 1:43Click Generate. It usually takes under a minute, and keeps going if you close the window.
18. 1:50Each run uses your academy’s AI tokens. When they run out, this window offers Top up.
19. 1:59The new questions are added to the bank.
20. 2:03Read each one before you use it: AI can be wrong.
21. 2:07Open one to fix the wording, the answer or the marks.
22. 2:12Click Save changes.
23. 2:15More guides are at help.lessonq.com.

Before you start

• Who can do this: anyone who can edit the question bank: the academy owner, admins, and instructors who manage question banks.
• Open the bank first. In the sidebar, open Exams and Assignments → Question banks, then click the bank.

Add several at once

Click Add question at the top right. Its second group, Add several at once, has three ways in:

1. Generate with AI. AI drafts questions from what you describe.
2. Clone questions. Copies questions from another of your banks.
3. Import from file. Adds up to 500 questions from an Excel or CSV file.

Clone from another bank

1. Click Clone questions. The window lists your other question banks, with how many questions and marks each has. Search or Filter to find one.
2. Click the bank to copy from.
3. Tick the questions you want. The box at the top ticks them all. In a long bank, search the questions or Filter them by type.
4. Click Clone (it says how many, as in Clone 3).

1. Tick the questions to copy.
2. Filter by question type.
3. Clone, with the number ticked.

The copies are added at the end of the bank. The originals stay where they are, and editing a copy never changes them. Files attached to a question are not copied: attach them again if the copy needs them.

Import from a file

Have the questions in a spreadsheet already, or find it quicker to type them there? Add up to 500 questions at once from an Excel (.xlsx, .xls) or CSV file of up to 5 MB.

1. Click Import from file.
2. Click Excel template or CSV template. The template has an example of every question type, and its first row names the columns.
3. Fill in one question per row and save the file.
4. Click Choose file (or drop the file on the window).

1. Excel template and CSV template.
2. Columns: what each column takes.
3. Choose file.

LessonQ reads the file and lists every question it found, with its answer and marks. Nothing is added to the bank yet.

1. A question that’s ready. Untick it to leave it out, or click it to change it before importing.
2. A row with a problem, and what’s wrong with it. It can’t be imported until it’s fixed: click it to fix it right there, or fix the file and click Replace file.
3. Import, with the number ticked.

Click Import. The questions are added at the end of the bank, where you edit them like any other.

The columns

The first row of the file names the columns. Only question is required.

Column	What to put in it
type	mcq, true_false, written or file_upload. Left empty, LessonQ works it out from the row.
question	The question text. Required.
option_1 … option_6	Multiple choice options: at least two, up to six.
answer	Multiple choice: the correct option numbers, like 2 or 1,3. True / false: TRUE or FALSE. Written: a model answer. Empty means you mark it by hand.
explanation	Shown to students with the results. Optional.
marks	Marks for a correct answer. Empty means 1; 0 means not graded.
required	yes or no. Empty means yes.
tags	Labels separated by commas. Optional.

Generate with AI

1. Click Generate with AI.
2. In Prompt, describe what to test, as you would to a colleague: the topic, the class, what to focus on.
3. Reference files Optional. Click Attach to add your notes, a chapter or a worksheet: images, PDF, Word, Excel or text. Up to 6 files, each up to 3 MB and 5 MB in total; no audio or video. The questions then follow them. A prompt or a file is enough on its own.
4. Choose the Settings:
   • Number of questions, from 1 to 20 with − and +. It starts at 5;
   • Question types: Multiple choice, True / False and Written. Multiple choice and Written are on to start with; click a type to turn it on or off;
   • Difficulty: Easy, Medium, Hard, or Mixed;
   • Language: Auto (the language of your prompt and files), English or বাংলা.
5. Click Generate.

1. Prompt.
2. Attach reference files.
3. Number of questions.
4. Question types.
5. Difficulty.
6. Language.
7. Generate.

The questions are written in the background: you can close the window and keep working, and Add question shows Generating… until it’s done. When they’re ready, LessonQ says how many were added, and they’re at the end of the bank.

Caution

Read every question before students see it. AI can get a fact or an answer wrong. Open each new question, fix the wording, the correct answer or the marks it was given, and click Save changes.

AI tokens

Each run uses your academy’s AI tokens: longer prompts, attached files and more questions use more. When they run out, the window says No AI tokens left, and admins get Top up to buy more. You can still fill everything in first.

1. The notice.
2. Top up.

Instructors see the notice too, and are asked to have an admin top up.

Next

The bank is ready: add it to a course as an exam or assignment.