IMPORTANT: Moodle Quiz (Essay Question) Grades Sometimes Resetting To Zero

Clicking the Similarity () or Grademark() buttons sometimes reset the question grade to zero.

TELC is currently in communication with Turnitin asking them to rectify this problem

Keep reading for a guide on how to work around this.

When you navigate to “Number of Attempts” within Quiz, you’re presented with this screen. Please note the grades in the example image.

Clicking on any grade in the table above under a question will open a pop-up.


This is the pop-up, there are two buttons (underlined with blue colour) the Similarity button and the Grademark button (looks like a pencil)


Clicking on the Similarity button will open Feedback Studio for the specific question you’re reviewing, there is no grade set within Feedback Studio by default, that’s okay.


When you close Feedback Studio and go back, you may notice that the grade for the question you were reviewing has gone to zero!

This is the important part, sometimes, when clicking on the similarity percentage -> going to Feedback Studio -> closing it, resets the question grade to zero.

If this happens, don’t worry, it’s very easy to override it. Once you do, make sure you avoid clicking on the Similarity button so it doesn’t reset again, but if it does, overriding it is very quick.


Just open the question you want to review, and click “Make comment or override mark”


Set the Mark to what you want, and tap Enter on your keyboard.


You may also set a grade from within Feedback Studio. But we don’t recommend you use Feedback Studio to grade in Moodle Essay Quiz because of integration hiccups.

However, if you do this – there are a few things to note.

  • The grade total shows the Quiz total, not the question. For example, my questions are 10 points each, and I have 3 of them. Turnitin shows –/30.

  • When I put a grade in, for example 15/30, it will afterwards automatically change to the correct value when based out of 10. (see below)


Finally, you may notice multiple sections of Response History – these exist under each question – only the Teacher/Admins can see them.

You may like to share this pdf (click here) with your students.