Forum Discussion
Quiz timer doesn't work properly when multiple quizzes draw questions from the same question bank
Hi everyone,
We want to create a course with multiple timed quizzes. Multiple question banks will be created with each containing over 200 questions. Some quizzes will draw questions from the same question bank with different number of questions and quiz durations. While constructing the course, I noticed the quiz countdown timer would always start at the longest duration that has been set for one of the quizzes when they all draw questions from the same bank.
I have created a simple course to better explain this issue, which can be downloaded below, and the output can be viewed here. Two quizzes have been set up that draw questions from the same bank with different test durations of 30 minutes and 60 minutes. “Start timer with first question” has been chosen for both quizzes and they have been set as Knowledge Checks as we don’t need to track the completions.
The issue is the 30-minute timer doesn’t work for Quiz 1, and it always starts at 60 minutes. Further testing was conducted to test two quizzes that draw questions from two different banks with the same quiz setting, and the timer would work just fine.
It seems that drawing the questions from the same bank would somehow cause the system to start the timer with the longest duration that has been set for a quiz in this set.
Although we can work around this by creating a question bank for each quiz, it is not ideal as this will dramatically increase the size of the course and duplicated banks will result in an increased workload when updating questions.
Have I not set this up correctly, or could this be a system flaw?
Much appreciated your help.
6 Replies
Assigning two values to the same bank will result in the first being overridden by the second. It's not about the longer or shorter duration. Only one value can be assigned per bank, and the most recent assignment takes precedence. If you switch the times around (e.g. 60 min on the first bank and 30 min on the second), you'll see the opposite effect. It’s like assigning two values to an object that’s designed to accept only one. The second value will either override the first or be rejected, depending on how the system handles it. Creating separate Quiz Banks to handle different durations is the only reliable solution here.
Thanks Nedim.
However, this timer setting is for the quiz, what you've said would make sense if the setting is for the bank. Each timer setting is applied to that specific quiz, similar to the Passing Score setting. If I set the passing score for the first quiz to 100% and 80% for the second quiz, they will work, and no overriding of passing score will happen. Why would the timer override each other? That's why I suspect the issue could be on the system side.That's correct. But if you look further, 30 minutes are assigned to Quiz 1, and Quiz 1 is pulling data from Bank 1. The same applies to the other result, which calculates time for Quiz 2, and it is also pulling data from the same Bank 1.
The first screenshot was taken after publishing your original .story file to the web. It shows that both timers are running simultaneously while the Quiz 1 is in progress. The first timer is visible on the slide, and both timers are actively tracking their elapsed time in the background. The second screenshot was captured during Quiz 1, which pulls questions from Bank 1, while Quiz 2 is configured to pull questions from Bank 2. Here, we can see that only the first timer (180000 ms – 30 minutes) is running, while the second timer for Quiz 2 is paused exactly as expected.Try this:
In your original .story file, set the time limit for Quiz 1 to 1 minute, and for Quiz 2 to 2 minutes. Use only Bank 1 for both quizzes. Preview the project and select Quiz 1. You’ll notice that the timer starts counting down from 2 minutes instead of 1.
In testing, the quiz ends after 1 minute, just as originally set and expected even though the timer initially starts from 2 minutes. In other words, it seems that the first timer is running correctly in the background, but the display initially shows the timer value set for Quiz 2.
Of course, this is only my opinion, based on my own findings and conclusions, and is not supported by any official Articulate documentation. At this point, I suggest contacting Articulate Support for further investigation, or consider assigning a separate question bank (e.g., Bank 2) to Quiz 2, which has proven to resolve the issue.
It sounds like you’ve set everything up correctly, and what you’re seeing is most likely a limitation in how the system handles timers when multiple quizzes pull from the same question bank. Many LMS or authoring tools tend to “link” quiz properties to the shared bank, so the longest duration assigned to any quiz using that bank becomes the default for all.
Your workaround of creating separate banks per quiz will definitely fix the issue, but I agree it’s not efficient for maintenance. If the platform doesn’t offer independent timer settings for quizzes sharing a bank, you may want to raise this as a potential bug or feature request with the support team — especially if independent timing is part of your instructional design.
In the meantime, another option (if the tool supports it) could be duplicating the bank within the authoring tool rather than manually recreating it, which might at least reduce the workload of keeping them synced.
