Exam & Gradebook Studio
Everything you need to run assessment end to end: build a class, write an exam, share it with students, read what the results are telling you, and print work worth handing to a head of department.
How the Studio is organised
Five destinations in the left-hand rail, in the order a teaching cycle actually runs.
| Section | What it holds | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Your dashboard: what needs doing next, recent exams, your classes | Every visit |
| Classes | Classes and their students, identified by exam number | Start of term |
| Exams | All exams · Build exam · AI assist · Preview | Per exam |
| Results | Analysis · Gradebook · Reports & printing · Retakes | After each exam |
| Settings | School & teacher, appearance, sound, data & privacy | Once a year |
Sections that hold more than one screen show a row of tabs beneath the heading. Exams and Results do; Home, Classes and Settings don't.
Your first week
The shortest path from a blank Studio to a marked exam.
- Fill in Settings. School, emirate, teacher name, academic year and term. These print on every paper and report, so it is worth getting right once.
- Create one class and paste its roster. Don't do all your classes yet — prove the workflow with one.
- Build a short exam — five questions is plenty. Set it active and assign it to that class.
- Preview it as a student would see it, then fix anything awkward.
- Share the link or QR code with a couple of willing students, or open it yourself in a private window and sit it as a test.
- Watch the marks arrive in Results. Nothing to collect or import.
- Print the class report so you know what the paperwork looks like before a real exam depends on it.
Signing in
The Studio is cloud-backed: your classes, exams and results follow you to any device you sign in on. Sign in with Google, or with an email and password.
Students never sign in. They open the exam link, enter their exam number, and start. They do not create accounts, install anything, or supply a name.
The dashboard
Home answers one question: what should I do next?
The next step
A single prompt that follows your real situation — no class yet, no exam yet, an exam still in draft, submissions waiting to be reviewed. It changes as you work.
Four numbers
Open exams, students, submissions this week, and how many answers need review. Every figure is counted from your stored data; nothing is estimated.
Recent exams
Your most recently touched exams with status, question count and how many students have submitted.
Your classes
Each class with its student count. Click through to manage the roster.
Classes & students
Build your rosters once. Every exam, mark and report is organised around them.
Adding students
Paste a roster one name per line. To control the exam numbers yourself, use
name, examNumber on each line. Otherwise the Studio generates them
from the class prefix.
Arabic names
Each student can carry an Arabic name alongside the English one. Both appear in your gradebook and on printed reports, right-aligned correctly. Neither is ever sent to a student device.
↑ Back to topBuilding an exam
Exams → Build exam
The builder is a list of exams on the left and the exam you're editing on the right. Everything saves as you type.
Exam setup
The bar at the top of the exam holds the settings you touch once — title, class assignment, exam code, duration, shuffling and language. It stays folded and summarises itself, so the questions get the screen:
Exam setup 1 class · 10A-T1-EX01 · 30 min · 20 marks [Ready]It opens by itself and shows Needs attention while an exam is still missing a title, a class, a code or any questions.
Status
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Yours alone. Students cannot open it, even with the link. |
| Active | Live. Anyone with the link and a valid exam number can sit it. |
| Archived | Closed. Results are kept; no new attempts. |
The ten question types
| Type | Use it for | Marked |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple choice | One correct option from several | Automatically |
| True / False | Binary factual checks | Automatically |
| Yes / No | Binary judgements | Automatically |
| Yes / No / Not Given | Reading inference, IELTS style | Automatically |
| Fill in the blanks | Gapped sentences; accepts alternatives | Automatically |
| Short answer | A word or phrase | Automatically, review if unsure |
| Open-ended | Extended writing | By you, in the gradebook |
| Drag to order | Sequencing — events, steps, stages | Automatically |
| Matching pairs | Terms to definitions | Automatically |
| Info text / Reading passage | A passage the questions refer to | Not marked, carries no marks |
Fill in the blanks
Write __1__ and __2__ in the prompt where the gaps go, then
give the answers in order. Separate acceptable alternatives with a vertical bar:
answer|reply.
AI assist
Exams → AI assist
Paste or describe a passage and the assistant drafts questions from it. You choose the mix of types and the number of questions, then review everything before it becomes an exam.
What students experience
Worth knowing, because you will be asked.
Signing in
Exam number only. No name, no account, no install. The landing screen shows the school, the exam title and the duration.
Progress
A bar across the top fills as they answer, so they always know how far through they are.
The timer
Neutral at first, amber under five minutes, red under one. At zero the exam submits itself automatically.
Reading passages
Warm paper, generous line spacing, the passage staying put while they scroll the questions.
Integrity warnings
If a student switches away from the exam, a dialog explains what happened and records it. Repeated switching can disqualify an attempt.
Submitting
A confirmation screen tells them the work is in. Marks appear in your gradebook immediately.
Analysis
Results → Analysis — the page changes shape depending on the question you're asking.
Pick one exam → Exam Diagnostic
Answers what happened in this assessment, and what should I reteach? Question difficulty ranked hardest first, score distribution, submission rate, mastery by question type, and students who need a word.
Pick all exams → Class Progress
Answers how is this class developing? Performance trend, which assessments went well, how individuals are moving, and who is improving, holding steady or slipping.
Question difficulty
Every question ranked by success rate, hardest first. Anything under 50% is flagged as hard; click a bar for the breakdown of correct, incorrect and blank. This is the fastest read on what to reteach.
Teaching insights
Short, plain statements drawn from the figures on the page — a question type worth revisiting, an assessment worth celebrating, students worth checking in with. Each one names the number it came from.
Gradebook & marking
Results → Gradebook
Pick a class, tick the exams you want to compare, and you get one grid: students down the side, exams across the top, with averages, totals and progress.
Choosing columns
Every column header carries a tick. Untick it and the column disappears from the screen and from the printed report — the two always agree. Hidden columns come back from the chip bar above the table.
Click anywhere in a header to toggle it; you don't have to hit the small box.
Marking open-ended answers
Answers needing your judgement are flagged for review. Open the student's attempt, read the response, award marks. Totals and analytics update immediately.
Reading the cells
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| A percentage with a small marker | ▲ strong · ● medium · ▼ concern. The shape carries the meaning as well as the colour, so it survives greyscale printing. |
| Hatched cell, Missing | No attempt from that student. |
| Review | Contains an answer awaiting your marking. |
| DQ | Attempt disqualified on integrity grounds. |
Reports & printing
Three routes, each shortest for a different job.
| You want | Go to |
|---|---|
| A question paper or answer key for one exam | Exams → Print on that exam's row |
| A class's marks as a report | Results → Reports & printing |
| Several exams or classes at once | The Print Center |
Question papers & answer keys
Three styles and three densities, plus a teacher answer key:
Modern Editorial
Vivid and contemporary.
Academic Prestige
Formal, serif title, leadership-ready.
Minimal Professional
Clean, precise, ink-efficient.
Compact uses less paper, Standard is balanced, and Spacious gives students more room to write. Writing lines scale with the marks: a one-mark answer gets one line, an eight-mark answer gets room to think.
The answer key marks correct options, shows fill-in answers and any sample answers you wrote, drops all the blank writing space, and carries sign-off lines for you and a head of department.
Class reports
Six print styles: Aurora Sapphire, Emerald Signature, Velvet Burgundy, Violet Prism, Graphite Executive and Solstice Coral. Each is a genuinely different design, not a colour swap.
- Cover — Full gives the report its own cover page; Compact folds the identity into a masthead and saves a sheet.
- Ink — Premium prints the full colour fields; Ink-saver keeps the design and drops the large fills.
- Analysis page — include or omit the charts and written insights.
Changing any control restyles the report instantly, so what you see is exactly what prints.
Retakes
Results → Retakes
Students get one attempt. When someone genuinely needs another — a dropped connection, a device failure, an accidental submit — issue a single-use retry code for that student on that exam.
Codes are one student, one exam, one use. The original attempt is kept, so you can see both.
↑ Back to topSchool & teacher
School name, emirate, teacher name, academic year and term — in English and Arabic. These appear on every printed paper and report, so they are worth setting carefully once.
Below them sit the defaults that cascade into each new exam: duration, shuffling, student language and how many marks a question carries by default. Change them per exam whenever you need to.
↑ Back to topAppearance & sound
Appearance
Light, Dark or System. System follows your device and keeps following it. The choice is per device, so a dark laptop and a light classroom desktop can differ.
Sound
Off by default. Turn it on for quiet cues when you press a control, save your work, or something needs attention. The sounds are generated in the browser — nothing is downloaded, and it works offline. If your device is set to reduce motion, sound stays silent.
↑ Back to topData & privacy
What is stored where
| Data | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| Classes, exams, submissions, marks | Your Studio account, online |
| Student names | Your device only — never sent to the cloud |
| Student identity during an exam | Anonymous exam number only |
| Appearance, sound, print preferences | This device |
Save a backup copy
At the end of term, download a backup from Settings → Data & privacy and keep it somewhere safe — a cloud drive, a USB stick, or emailed to yourself. It is one file containing your classes, exams, submissions and gradebook, with no student names in it.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Student says the link doesn't work | The exam is almost certainly still Draft. Set it to Active. |
| Student can't get past the exam number | The number isn't on that class's roster, or the exam isn't assigned to their class. Check both in Classes and in the exam's setup bar. |
| Marks aren't appearing | They arrive on submission, not while a student is working. An attempt still in progress shows nothing yet. |
| A column is missing from the printed report | It is unticked in the gradebook. Screen and print always match by design. |
| Covers or table headers print blank | Background graphics is off in the print dialog. Switch it on. |
| Page numbers or headers are missing | Margins is set to "None". Set it back to Default. |
| "Download PDF" opens a print dialog | Correct. Choose Save as PDF as the destination — it gives real, selectable text rather than a picture of the page. |
| Nothing happens when you click Download | Pop-ups are blocked for the site. Allow them and try again. |
| Sound does nothing | It is off by default; turn it on in Settings. It also stays silent if your device is set to reduce motion. |
| Signed out unexpectedly | Sign back in. Nothing is lost — your work is on the server. |
| Safari private window behaves oddly | Private mode blocks storage. Use a normal window. |
Browsers
Best experience: Chrome, Edge or Brave on Windows and Mac, Safari 14+
on Mac and iPad, Firefox 90+.
Student exam page tested on: Chrome on Chromebooks, Safari on iPad,
Chrome on Android — touch and keyboard both supported.
Printing is verified in Chrome and Edge; other browsers handle print
margins and page numbers differently.