How to make a quiz in Excel

By Helen Bradley March 11, 2013 Software

Quizzes for work or play are easy to create in Microsoft Excel

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Excel is a great tool to use to create a quiz for work or play. It can track correct and wrong
answers, and keep a running score of your progress. You can make up your own list of
questions or do as we did and find some on the web to use.

Our movie questions came from www.adviceopedia.com. We’ll show you how to create the
quiz, how to write the formulas that track progress and how to keep the answers away
from prying eyes.
Structure the workbook
To start, open a new workbook and rename ‘Sheet1’ and ‘Sheet2’ to read ‘Quiz’ and
‘Answers’. You do this by double-clicking the tab for each sheet and typing the new name.

In cell B1 of the ‘Quiz’ worksheet, type Number of Questions . In cell B2, type Your Score .
Across row 4 starting in Column A type: Question, Answer, Result.

Down column A from cell A5 downwards, type the questions, one per cell. Then switch to
the worksheet called ‘Answers’ and starting in cell A5, type the answer to the
corresponding question on the ‘Quiz’ sheet. Adjust the width of column A so you can read
the questions.

Add the formulas

Formulas do all the work of checking answers and keeping score. In cell C5, type this
formula:

=IF(B5””,IF(B5=Answers!A5,”Correct”, “Incorrect”),””)

This checks the answer in cell B5 to see if it matches the contents of cell A5 on the
‘Answers’ worksheet. If the answer is correct it places the word ‘Correct’ in the current cell.

If the answer is incorrect, it reads ‘Incorrect’. Copy this formula down column C so it
appears opposite each question.

In cell C1, opposite the heading ‘Number of Questions’, type this formula:

=COUNTA(A:A)-1

This will return the number of questions in your quiz.

In cell C2, opposite the words ‘Your Score’, type the following formula to calculate the
score, assuming you have less than 4,995 questions in total:

=COUNTIF(C5:C5000,”=Correct”)

Format the worksheet

An easy way to format the worksheet attractively is to select all the cells in the range,
starting at A4 and ending with the cell in column C opposite the last question.

Go to ‘Home > Format as Table’, choose a table format and click ‘OK’. Then click ‘Table
Tools > Design Tab > Convert to Range’ to remove the unwanted table features.

Select the cells in column B that will contain your answers, right-click and select ‘Format
Cells > Protection tab’, deselect ‘Locked’ and click ‘OK’. This will unlock the cells so that
data can be entered in them when the worksheet is protected.

Step-by-step: Protect your answers

Step 1:

Hide the sheet containing the answers by right-clicking it and selecting ‘Hide’ from the
menu. While this hides the answer sheet, it’s still possible for someone to unhide it, so more
work remains to be done.

Step 2:
To protect the ‘Quiz’ worksheet, go to ‘Review tab > Protect Sheet’. Set the dialogue so the
only selected option is ‘Select Unlocked Cells’. Type a password to protect the sheet and
enter it again when prompted. Users can now only select cells in column B and they won’t
see the formulas that indicate where the answers are.

Step 3:

To protect the workbook so the ‘Answers’ sheet itself can’t be unhidden, click ‘Review tab >
Protect Workbook’. Select ‘Structure’ and type a password.