Google Forms – Questions: What else can you do?

In this post, we’re going to look at:

  • Naming the form and file
  • Changing question type
  • Making questions obligatory to complete
  • Changing the order of the questions on your form
  • Automatic question types and answers based on question input

Naming the form and file

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In my previous post, we already created a simple multiple-choice form and named it “Revision test”. In the top left-hand corner you’ll notice that the file is still called “Untitled form”. So, let’s give it a more meaningful name.

Click on the filename “Untitled form” and automatically it will suggest that you name it the same as the form title. You can leave it like this, or you can press delete and type in your own filename.

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Back in the form, we can also add a form description. Click on “Form description” under the form title.

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For example, “End of unit 1 test”.

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Changing the type of question

Often we want the name of the person who’s filling out the form, so we can add a question asking for the to fill out their name.

1) Click on the first question so it is highlighted as if you were going to edit it. Then click the “plus” button to add a question.

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2) In the “Question” field type Name.

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3) Click on “Multiple choice” to select the question types.

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4) From the menu, choose “Short answer”, which requires the person to type in a short piece of text, i.e. in this example, their name.

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Making a question obligatory to complete

5) I always want them to fill in their name, so I can make the question obligatory. At the bottom of the box, click the slider button “Required”, so it changes colour.

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Changing the order of the questions

6) When I look at my form, I see the Name question is after the first quiz question. I want it to be the first one. So, all I do is click on the Name question, where the 6 little dots are, and drag it upwards above the first question then drop it.

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7) The name question is now the first one. You can change the order of any your questions this way. Think of each one as a separate block that can be moved around.

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Automatic question types based on the question

Forms now contain some AI (Artificial Intelligence), which looks at the question you’ve written and if it’s a common question, it will automatically suggest possible answers for that question and change the question type accordingly. The idea being to save you time when creating forms.

For example, I typed the question “What’s your name?” and automatically it changed the question type to a ‘short answer’.

Another example, is a “Do you…” question, which you would expect a yes/no answer, or possibly a maybe response. As you type the question, the suggested answers appear below.

You can add all the suggestions (Yes/No/maybe) by clicking on “ADD ALL”, or if you only want certain options, you can just click the ones you want and they will be added to the answer options.

For more information on the types of questions available in Google Forms, check out this post.


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