How to Create a Scantron in Google Docs

1. Create (Red button in the left column) >>> Form

This takes you to a survey form which will be your scantron. But, you are only going to create 5
questions on this form.

2. Title the form “Scantron for [Name of Test or date]”. (You can change this title every year for
different classes or dates.) The form will have two questions started for you. They will show
“Sample Question 1” and “Sample Question 2”.

3. Click on the pencil (see above diagram) to create a “TEXT” question type. Then, change
“Sample Question 1” to “Student ID”.

4. For “Sample Question 2” select the pencil icon and change the question type to a
“MULTIPLE CHOICE” question for the student to select the period they have you. Enter
“Period” where “Sample Question 2” existed. (See above.)
5 In the top left corner of the layout, pull down “Add Item” to create a “GRID” question type to
give the form a Scantron effect (see below).
6. Above you see the end result of creeating one grid question that has 10 rows in the question.
Below, shows the making of athe columns in a “GRID” question. For a Scantron the columns
are simply A B C D.

7. Below shows the numbers for each Scantron question. These are entered under the rows of
one “GRID” question type.

8. Make sure to mark each question with “Make this a required question” at the end of each
question box when creating the question.

9. Create a “TEXT” question for the student’s Last Name. by once again selecting “Add Item”.

10. Create another “TEXT” question for the student’s First Name. (You may want one more
quesiton for Grade Level.) If so, make it a multiple choice question type. Select “Add Item” to
create both of these.

11. Apply a theme to the Scantron by selecting “Apply Theme” located directly to the right of
“Add Item”.

12. Save the form. This button is located on the top right hand corner of the form. Make sure
Google Docs has saved it. (“Save” will be grayed-out.)

13. Clck on the blue link at the bottom of the form to go to the “Live” Scantron.

14. Hint: Copy and paste that link and turn it into a tiny URL (tinyurl.com) to write the link on
the board for the students to be able to go to that form.

15. Go back to Google Docs and sort your list by “last modified”. Refresh you screen.

16. Select your survey from the Docs list. It will have a green icon. Open it.

17. It opens to a spreadsheet. All results from students will show up here.

18. To get back to the live survey/scantron, in your Google Docs Spreadsheet look at the menu
bar under the title; then, pull down the menu titled “Form” >>> select “Go to live form” from the
drop down.

17. To edit your survey/scantron select “Edit Form” which is the first choice on the “Form”
drop down on the menu bar of the spreadsheet.

18. You can also view the summary results of every test question to see what percentage of
students answered each question correctly. This can give interesting data about your
questions that you have created/written/taught. You may want to discard, rewrite, or reteach
certain questions after looking at the summary results of your scantron!

How to Create a Key for your Scantron

1. Take the test using your Live Scantron. Enter “Test Key” under the ID, First Name, and Last
name. Enter the first period as your period.

2. Your test key will be the first response to your test and will show up on the spreadsheet.

How to Make the Key Easy to Grade (Red Colors)

1. Open the Spreadsheet. Select the cell under question one that contains the very first answer
to your responses to the test. Go to “FORMAT” menu bar >>> “CONDITIONAL FORMATTING”

2. Complete the formula as follows in the diagram:

a. Pull down “Text contains” and change it to “Text does not contain”.
b. Enter the correct answer from the key in the box
c. Select the color white for text
d. Select the color red for the background
3. Now, select that CELL again >>> Copy. (In Google Docs on a Mac you must choose the
command key and the c key to copy.) Find another cell with that answer and select >>> Edit
menu >>> “Paste Special” >>> “Conditional Formatting Only” (see below).

4. Do this to every cell with that answer. Do the same for B, C, D, and E (if applicable) so that
every cell has conditional formatting reflecting the correct answer as shown in the dialog box
above.

5. Select just the test answers in the row that you conditionally formatted. Copy them.

6. Select at least 30 rows directily under those answers and (as shown in red below) >>> Edit
>>> Paste special >>> Paste conditional formatting only.

Notice ID # 55555555 missed 6 questions. They are in red. As the next one is submitted, all the
red cells will change on that row. Notice the test key did not miss any.

Also, if any test column does not show up in red when you paste special, you did not
conditionally format it.
7. Add a column directly after the last test question to tally up the number wrong or right. Add
another column to enter the percentage. (Directions follow.)

Adding Columns: Click on the letter att he top of the last name column >>> Insert >>> Column
Left. Repeat for Percentage column.

8. You can manually count the number wrong or you can create a formula to do it for you.

How to Make the Test Self-Grading​ (only do this if you understand how to use
Spreadsheets at an advanced level)

1. You have to add as many columns (to the right) as you have questions (Scantron Bubbles)
on your test.

2. In the same row as you created your test key enter the following formula: ​=IF(​F2​="A",0,1)

F2 is the cell that the first test answer is in

A is the answer to that question
Hence, the next cell has this formla: =IF(​G2​="D",0,1) and so on to the right of answer 3, 4, etc

Hint 1: ​After the first formula, select all cells in that ROW to the end of the end of the spreadsheet and “fill right”
then all you have to do is inter the answer in quotations--not the complete formula.

Hint 2: ​ Copy the test key answers and paste them below in the columns you just created above--except do it one
row down. (This would be the row where the first submission is going to come in.) The reason to do this is so
that you can see the answer for each formula you need to enter. After entering the formula, delete these
answers.

This can be time consuming. But, if you have several classes receiving the same test, it is worth it. Usually, I just
count up the number wrong, but for my final exams it was worth it to get this done ahead of time so that I could
just copy and past the scores into Easy Grade Pro.

3. Insert a cell to the left of the first column you created in number one directly above. This cell will be a
total of all your ones and zeros to give you the number wrong:

=sum(​BP2:DW2​)

3. Insert a cell to the left of the last column you created in number three directly above. This cell will be a
Percent the student received on the test. This formula is for 60 test questions. So, you need to adjust the
number 60 (below) to the number of test questions you are using.

=(60-​BO2​)/60*1
4. Select the cells of all the new formulas you just created for every question and the two score cells.
Copy. Select all the rows under these columns that you created and paste special. I noticed that in
Google Docs, I had to “Paste Special” AFTER the students submitted their tests. Otherwise, the formulas
did not follow through even though the conditional formatting with the colors did follow through upon
submission.

Rule of thumb in Googe Docs: Conditional formatting is picked in a survey submission, formulas are not.

5. Below is a look at the grading side and the formula side of the Google Spreadsheet for a test.

By: decadotty@gmail.com