What is a quiz question generator?
A quiz question generator turns reading material into a quiz. Paste a passage and pick a question type: multiple choice, true/false or short answer. Then pick 5, 10 or 15 questions. You get back numbered questions and a separate answer key. Every question is about the text you pasted, so the only way to answer it is to have read the text.
That last part is the whole point. A reading quiz that can be passed from general knowledge, or by picking the longest option, tells you nothing. This one is built the other way round. The wrong options come from the passage itself, and each true/false statement turns on one specific claim in it.
It works the same for a teacher with Friday's chapter, a tutor building a check-in for one student, a trainer turning a safety policy into ten questions, or a parent quizzing a kid on tonight's reading. AI quiz-making usually ships as one feature inside a classroom platform. You get an account wall before the first question, a trial that runs out, and a per-seat plan with the AI bundled into the contract. This is just the quiz. You paste, you get the quiz, you copy it out and leave. There's no account to make before the first quiz, no class roster to import, and no trial clock running in the corner.
When to use the Quiz Question Generator
The night before a reading check. The chapter is open in another tab and you still need ten questions. Paste the section you assigned, leave it on multiple choice, and ask for 10. Read the set once, fix anything you'd phrase differently, and copy the student version.
Checking that a long article actually got read. Five true/false statements take a minute to answer and are quick to mark. Use them for a warm-up, an exit ticket or the start of a discussion. They show who read to the end and who read the headline.
Training and onboarding. A new policy, a procedure, a product sheet. Short-answer questions work well here, because the answer is a fact stated in the document: a number, a name, a step. The Worker is told to keep short answers to five words or fewer, so they're quick to mark.
Studying your own notes. Paste a page of lecture notes and quiz yourself. Keep the answers hidden, answer on paper, then turn on Show answers.
The input that works best is a focused section of 1,000 to 2,000 words with real specifics in it: names, dates, numbers, causes and results. A passage that is all opinion gives the questions nothing to hang on. The tool accepts anything from 200 characters up to 12,000.
What makes a good quiz question
A good reading question separates the student who read from the student who skimmed. Three things decide whether it does.
It can't be answered without the passage
"What is the capital of France?" is a general-knowledge question. It isn't a reading question. If a student who never opened the text can get it right, delete it.
The wrong options are tempting
Wrong options that are obviously silly give the answer away. The best distractor is a real detail from the passage attached to the wrong thing. Someone who half-read the text remembers the detail but not where it belonged.
Nothing in the wording points to the answer
If the right option is longer, more hedged or more grammatical than the others, students learn to pick the long one. The same goes for answer letters. If B wins six times out of ten, B becomes a strategy.
Here's how that plays out on a short passage about a paper mill. The mill opened in 1874, shipped newsprint by barge to Carden, added a second machine in 1896 that took the workforce from 60 to 140, and closed after a flood in 1931.
| Question | Weak version | Strong version | Why the strong one works |
|---|---|---|---|
| When did the mill close? | 1066 · 1931 · 2020 · 3000 | 1874 · 1896 · 1921 · 1931 | Two of the wrong years are in the passage. A skimmer remembers "a year" but not which one. |
| Where was the newsprint shipped? | Carden · the moon · nowhere · Paris | Carden · Harlow · the east bank · the Tessel River | Every option is a place named in the text. |
| How many worked there after 1896? | 0 · 1 million · 140 people, as the passage says · 12 | 20 · 60 · 140 · 200 | All four are plain numbers of the same form. No option explains itself. |
| True/false | "The mill mattered to the town." | "The mill made writing paper from the day it opened." | The strong statement turns on one checkable claim. It's false, because writing paper came in 1896. |
The one rule: if a question can be answered by someone who didn't read the passage, it isn't testing the reading. Delete it. A quiz with nine fair questions beats one with ten where one is a freebie.
How the quiz question generator works
There are two halves, and it helps to know which half does what.
The writing half is a language model. Your passage goes to Microapp's AI Worker along with the type and count you picked. The instructions it runs under are strict. Multiple choice gets exactly four options, A to D, with no "all of the above." Wrong options should come from the passage and match the right one in length and form. The correct letter should rotate. Questions should spread across the whole passage instead of bunching in the first paragraph. If the passage can't support the number you asked for, the model should return fewer and say why in a single Note: line, not pad the set with filler.
The reading half is plain code. The model's reply never goes straight to your screen. A parser reads it first. It keeps each question that has everything its type needs, drops any that don't, and numbers the survivors 1, 2, 3 again. Multiple-choice questions need all four options and an answer letter from A to D. True/false answers get tidied to True or False. Markdown the model adds on its own, like bold question lines or a heading, is stripped before anything is read.
Here's a real run of that parser. Say the model sends back four multiple-choice questions about the mill passage. The first two have bold markdown, and the second has an extra Explanation: line tacked on. The third, "In what year did the mill close for good?", has only options A to C. The fourth asks what the second machine made. The reply ends with the note "The passage only supports 4 questions, not 5."
The page shows the model's note, then the tool's own line: "We dropped 1 question(s) that came back broken." Three questions survive, renumbered 1 to 3. The explanation line and the asterisks are gone. Copy questions gives you this:
1. How many people worked at the mill after the second machine arrived?
A. 60
B. 140
C. 20
D. 200
2. Where did the barges take the newsprint?
A. Carden
B. Harlow
C. The east bank
D. The Tessel River
3. What did the second machine make?
A. Newsprint
B. Barge sails
C. Writing paper
D. Cardboard
Copy with answer key gives you the same text, then a blank line, the words Answer key, and 1. B, 2. A, 3. C, one per line. The student version has no answer letters and no Answer lines anywhere. The page itself shows no answers until you turn on Show answers, so the copy you're most likely to put on a projector by accident is the safe one.
How to get a better quiz from your passage
- Paste one section, not the whole chapter. Fifteen questions spread across 12,000 characters get thin. Ten questions on the part you actually taught are sharper.
- Match the count to the passage. A 300-word passage has maybe five good questions in it. Ask for 15 and you'll get a note explaining why you got fewer, which is the right outcome, but 5 gets you there directly.
- Strip the clutter first. Page numbers, figure captions and "Review questions" boxes copied from a textbook are text too, and the model may ask about them.
- Check the letter spread. Read down the answer key. If one letter wins five of ten, swap two options in one question. It takes ten seconds.
- Pick the type for the marking you want. True/false is fastest to mark and easiest to guess. Short answer is hardest to guess and takes longest to mark. Multiple choice sits in the middle.
If the quiz doesn't come back right
If it says the set came back cut off, the reply ran past the length limit. That run isn't charged. Ask for 10 instead of 15, or paste a shorter section.
If it says the reply came back unreadable, the model answered in a shape the parser couldn't read. A refusal does this too. Here's what to try first. Change the count or the type, or edit a sentence of the passage, then press Make the quiz again. Replies are stored for seven days, keyed to the exact passage, type and count. Pressing the button with nothing changed brings back the same reply.
If the passage is under 200 characters, nothing is sent and nothing is charged. The tool asks for a paragraph or two more.
When not to use AI to write a quiz
A language model is a fast first draft, not a second marker. Some quizzes need more than that.
- Graded exams that count. Anything that goes on a report card deserves a question-by-question read against the source. The generator gets you a draft in seconds. You're still the one who signs it.
- Passages you haven't read. If you can't tell whether answer C is right, you can't catch the one time it isn't.
- Interpretation and argument. The generator writes questions that turn on what the text says. "Why does the narrator lie to her sister?" is a discussion question, and it's better written by someone who knows the class.
- Anything where a wrong answer key does harm. Safety certifications and compliance sign-offs are two. Have a second person check the key.
That's also why the output is plain text, not a locked form. You're meant to edit it.
Related tools for reading and teaching
Quizzing on a topic instead of a passage? The Trivia Question Generator gives you a ready-made bank of general-knowledge questions. Before you assign a passage, run it through the Reading Level Checker to see whether it fits the class. The Summarizer gives you a short version to hand out after the quiz. If the reading only exists as a PDF, pull the text out with PDF text extraction first, then paste it here. And when it's time to go over answers out loud, the Random Name Picker decides who goes first, so it's never the same three hands.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I get the same questions when I press the button again?
Because the same passage, type and count give back the same stored set for seven days, and a repeat doesn't use another credit. For a fresh set, change the count or the type, or edit the passage. Adding spaces at the end doesn't count as a change, because the passage is trimmed before it's sent.
Can I upload a PDF or Word file?
Not directly. The tool takes pasted text. Copy the text out of the document first. For a PDF, PDF text extraction does that in your browser. For a scanned PDF, run OCR on it first.
Can students take the quiz on the page?
No. There are no share links, no timer and no student accounts. The tool makes the quiz and you deliver it however you already do: printed, projected, read aloud or pasted into your class platform.
Can I mix multiple choice and true/false in one quiz?
Not in one run. Make one set of each on the same passage, paste them into one document, and renumber the second set. Changing the type counts as a new request, so you get a new set, not the stored one.
Can I set the difficulty?
Not in this version. The most reliable difficulty control is the passage itself. A dense section with lots of specifics produces harder questions than a light overview. Short answer is also harder to guess than true/false.
What does "We dropped 1 question(s) that came back broken" mean?
The model wrote a question that was missing something, like an option or an answer line. Rather than show you a broken question, the tool removed it and renumbered the rest. Everything left on the page is complete. If you need the full count, change the count or edit the passage and run it again.
Does the Quiz Question Generator keep a copy of my quizzes?
There's no library or account history. Once you leave the page, the quiz lives wherever you pasted it, so copy it before you close the tab. The model's reply is cached for up to seven days, which is why an identical request comes back instantly without a new charge.