In the Cloze Drag & Drop Question, learners drag their responses from a list of options set by the author, into empty response boxes.

Figure 1: Cloze Drag & Drop Question example.

Create a Question

Watch the "How to create a Cloze Drag and Drop Question" tutorial video.

Enter the Question stem into the Compose question area. In the Template Markup area below enter your text and add response boxes by clicking on the Insert Response button in the Editor. This will indicate the position of the response box in the text. You can also use the keyboard shortcut, double underscore. See example in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Response button in the Rich Text Editor.

In the Possible responses section, enter all possible responses for the learner to choose from. The +Add button will add a new response box, and the trash can icon beside a response will delete it. The button to the left of each field allows you to re-order how the Multiple choice options appear to the learner, through simple drag and drop. Note: each entry in the possible responses should be unique.

The Group possible responses option allows you to categorise possible responses into different groups, with each group having its own heading.

Figure 3: Cloze Drag & Drop basic parameters.

You can now configure validation for your Question. Follow these steps to set up score and correct response:

• Insert value in the Point(s) box to set up a mark for the Question. The default value is 1.
• In the Correct tab, you will see the text with empty response boxes and a container with possible response options. In order to validate the Question drag and drop correct responses into the respective boxes. See example in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Question validation.

Enable Duplicate responses if you want the responses to be used infinite times. This means a response when dragged into a box will not disappear from the possible responses container and is reusable.

Drag handles appear to the left of each possible response and can be enabled or disabled. Both options can be found below Validation.

Authors can add Alternate Responses if there is more than one correct solution to a Question. See this Author Guide article for more information.

The Match all possible responses configuration will allow you to specify more than one valid response for one response option. Instead of creating multiple combinations of possible responses while setting the correct responses, Authors can simply add in the different versions of the response options in the alternative correct answers for that response position and choose the Match all possible responses option. See the Author Guide article for more information.

More options

Under the More options button, in Scoring section, you can change formatting settings, scoring types and apply different styles to your Question.

The following scoring types are available in Cloze Drag & Drop Questions:

• Exact Match - Learner must answer all parts of the Question correct to receive a mark.
• Partial Match Per Response - Each correct response element will be awarded an individual score.
• Partial Match - Each correct response element will be scored individually and the overall Question score will be divided between responses.

Other Scoring options:

• Unscored/Practice usage type - Enabling this option will remove all scoring from the Question.
• Penalty point(s) - The value entered here indicates marks that will be deducted from the learner for an incorrect response.
• Case sensitive - Determines whether learner responses must match letter casing exactly. By default, all Questions are not case sensitive; for example, “Yes” and “yes” are treated as the same answer. If you want students to enter responses using the correct capitalization, enable Case sensitive.
• Check answer button - If this is enabled, a "Check answer button" will appear to the learner alongside the Question; clicking this button will indicate to the learner if their answer is correct or incorrect, but it will not tell them the correct response. This can be useful for informal assessment.
• Check answer attempts - The value entered here will indicate how many times the learner can use the "Check answer button". A value of 0 indicates an infinite number of times.
• Minimum points if attempted¹ - Points awarded to the learner for attempting the Question, regardless of a correct or incorrect response.

Layout

From the Response container position, drop-down menu choose where to position the possible responses container. Options are Top, Bottom, Left or Right.

Authors also have the ability to control the size of response boxes in the text. Width and height of all response boxes can be changed at once in the Response Container (global) section. However, if you only wish to change the size of specific boxes go to Response Container (individual).

If you set the width to a fixed size enable Wordwrap, it will allow the response box to expand vertically to fit the response into it.

'Extra' options

The extras section in the authoring interface allows you to add more information about the Question, information that we refer to as metadata.

There are a number of fields available: acknowledgements, contains math, distractor rationale, distractors, instructor stimulus, rubric reference, sample answer, and stimulus (review only).

To learn more about the options shown in the Extras section, see Understanding the Extras Section of the Question Editor.

1. Note: “Minimum points if attempted” replaces the earlier label “Minimum score if attempted”. Version added: v2026.1.LTS