If you’re using Brainshark to train employees or clients, you already know slides alone won’t cut it. People tune out. Quizzes are where you find out if anyone’s actually paying attention—or just clicking Next. This guide is for anyone who wants to add quizzes to their Brainshark presentations without getting lost in menus or wasting time on features that don’t matter.
Let’s skip the marketing fluff and get right to what works, what to avoid, and how to build quizzes that actually help you (and your learners).
Why Add a Quiz in Brainshark? (And When Not To)
Before you start, ask yourself: do you really need a quiz? Quizzes in Brainshark can:
- Check if people actually absorbed the material
- Satisfy compliance or certification requirements
- Break up long presentations
- Give you data on who’s struggling and who’s breezing through
But sometimes, people add quizzes just because they can. If you don’t care about the answers or won’t use the data, skip it. Forcing users through pointless questions just makes them click random buttons to get to the end.
If you’re sure a quiz is worth the effort, here’s how to do it right.
Step 1: Plan Your Quiz Before Touching the Software
Don’t start building until you know:
- Why: What do you want to measure? (Understanding, recall, compliance?)
- How many questions: 3-5 is usually plenty unless you’ve got a long or high-stakes presentation.
- Where in the presentation: All at the end? Sprinkled after key sections?
- Question types: Multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank. Keep it simple.
Pro tip: Write your questions and answers in a doc first. It’s much easier to edit outside Brainshark. And keep your questions clear—no trick questions or “gotchas.” You want to check understanding, not play games.
Step 2: Open or Create Your Brainshark Presentation
- Log in to Brainshark.
- Either create a new presentation or open one you want to edit.
- Make sure you’ve got editing rights. If you’re stuck in view-only mode, talk to your admin.
Heads up: If you’re updating a live presentation, warn users about changes. You don’t want someone halfway through a quiz when you swap out all the questions.
Step 3: Navigate to the Quiz Section
- In Edit mode, look for the “Add Questions” or “Quiz” tab. It’s usually in the left menu or as an option when adding new slides.
- Click to start adding a quiz slide.
What to ignore: Don’t get distracted by fancy “attachments” or “surveys” unless you know you need them. They’re different from quizzes. Quizzes are graded; surveys are not.
Step 4: Add Your First Question
- Choose “Add Question” or similar—Brainshark may call it “Insert Question Slide.”
- Pick your question type:
- Multiple Choice: The go-to for most quizzes. Let users pick one or more answers.
- True/False: Fast, but easy to guess.
- Fill-in-the-Blank: Harder to grade and easy to mess up, especially if spelling matters.
Honest take: Stick with multiple choice unless you have a good reason not to. Fill-in-the-blank is more trouble than it’s worth for most use cases.
Writing the Question
- Keep it simple. No double negatives or long-winded setups.
- Write the question text in the provided field.
- Enter answer choices. Mark the correct one(s).
- Add feedback if you want. (You can show a custom message if someone gets it wrong or right, but it’s optional.)
Pro tip: If you need to randomize answer order, look for that checkbox. Otherwise, users will spot patterns (the answer is always C!).
Step 5: Set Question Options
For each question, you’ll usually see:
- Points: How much is this question worth? Default is usually 1.
- Attempts allowed: Let users try again or just once? If it’s compliance, stick with one.
- Required: Does the user have to answer to move on? Usually, yes.
Don’t overthink it: Unless you’re building a certification exam, keep the options simple. More settings = more headaches.
Step 6: Add More Questions and Organize
- Click “Add Another Question” or the plus (+) button to keep going.
- You can drag and drop to reorder questions if needed.
- If you want to group questions after certain sections, insert quiz slides throughout the presentation—not just at the end.
What doesn’t work well: Avoid super-long quizzes. People start guessing, and you get garbage data. Five solid questions are better than fifteen throwaways.
Step 7: Set Quiz Properties
Now, configure the quiz as a whole—not just individual questions.
- Passing Score: Set the percentage needed to pass (e.g., 80%). Don’t set this too high unless there’s a real reason.
- Allow Retake: Decide if users can retake the quiz (handy for learning, not so much for certifications).
- Show Correct Answers: You can choose to show users what they got right/wrong. For learning, this helps. For compliance, maybe not.
Warning: Some organizations require proof that users passed without seeing answers. If in doubt, check your policy.
Step 8: Preview Your Quiz
- Use Brainshark’s “Preview” or “Play” feature to see how the quiz looks and works.
- Answer questions yourself. Try to break it—pick wrong answers, skip questions, click Next too soon.
- Check if feedback and scoring work as expected.
Don’t skip this. Typos and bad logic are easy to miss until you see the quiz in action.
Step 9: Publish or Update Your Presentation
- Save all changes.
- If this is a new presentation, publish it.
- If you updated an existing one, notify users (if needed) and make sure the new quiz is live.
Reminder: If people have already completed the presentation, check if their scores get reset by your changes. Brainshark handles this differently depending on your settings.
Step 10: Review Results and Adjust
- Go to the reporting or analytics section in Brainshark.
- See who’s taking the quiz, what questions are commonly missed, and overall scores.
- Fix or reword any questions that everyone gets wrong. It’s usually a bad question, not bad learners.
What to ignore: Don’t obsess over every individual score unless it’s critical. Look for patterns that show where your material (or your questions) aren’t clear.
Pro Tips for Better Brainshark Quizzes
- Keep it short: 3–5 questions per quiz. More than that, and you lose people.
- Clear, unambiguous wording: If a question can be misread, it will be.
- Mix types sparingly: Multiple choice is almost always fine. T/F and fill-in can trip people up or be too easy to guess.
- Don’t use quizzes for trivia: Only ask about key concepts.
- Give feedback: If you want people to learn, tell them why they got something wrong.
- Test on real users: Watch someone else take your quiz. You’ll spot things you missed.
What Doesn’t Work (and What to Ignore)
- Endless settings: Brainshark has lots of options, but very few matter for basic quizzes.
- Surveys vs. quizzes: Surveys aren’t scored. Don’t use them if you need to track completion or pass/fail.
- Trick questions: They don’t test learning—they just annoy people.
- Overusing feedback: Sometimes less is more. If every question has a paragraph of explanation, people stop reading.
Keep It Simple, Iterate, and Move On
You don’t need a perfect quiz on your first try. Get something basic out there, see how people do, and tweak as needed. Most importantly, focus on clear questions that actually measure what you care about. Don’t get lost chasing every feature or setting—just create a quiz that does the job and helps your learners.
If you’re stuck, start small. It’s easier to add questions later than to fix a confusing quiz after dozens of people have struggled through it. Good luck—and remember, most people would rather be doing anything other than taking a quiz. Make yours painless and you’ll stand out.