How online tests work
Question papers students take online, free or paid, without lessons.
An online test is a set of question papers students take online, such as "DSC previous papers" holding DSC 2026, DSC 2025 and DSC 2024. Unlike a course, it has no lessons or sections: just the tests, one after another.
How an online test is different from a course
| Course | Online test | |
|---|---|---|
| What's inside | Sections and topics: videos, notes, quizzes | Tests only, each with its own questions |
| Where you build it | Courses | Online tests |
| Free or paid | Yes | Yes, the same way |
| Enrolling students | Yes | Yes, the same way |
| Certificates | When every topic is finished | When every test is passed |
Everything else works as it does for a course: enrolling students, end dates, selling online, free courses and your public website.
What a test can have
Each test is a quiz with everything a quiz can have. See Add a quiz:
- Single-answer, multiple-answer and true / false questions.
- Pictures on questions and answers, such as a diagram for a maths question.
- Different marks for each question.
- Categories, such as Quantitative Aptitude, English and Reasoning, with marks shown for each.
- Negative marking, such as a quarter of a question's marks taken off for a wrong answer.
- Instructions students read and confirm before they start.
- A time limit, the number of attempts, and a passing score.
You can type the questions in, or create them all from an Excel sheet.
Free and paid online tests
- Free: turn on The whole online test is free on its details page. Any student can start it from Free courses.
- Paid: set a price on its details page, exactly as for a course. Students buy it, or you enroll them.
- Free samples in a paid online test: mark one or more tests as a Free sample. Students who start the online test for free can take those tests. The others show as Locked until the student buys it or you enroll them.
What students see
Students find online tests in My Courses, on an Online tests tab when they also have courses. Opening one shows every test with its questions, marks and time, their best score, and a button: Start test, Resume, Try again or View result. Before a test starts, they read its instructions and tick I have read and understood the instructions.
A student who started a paid online test for free sees the free sample tests open and the others Locked, with a button to buy it when you sell online. In an online test that is free throughout, there is nothing to unlock: no test is marked Free sample and no panel asks students to contact you.
