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Biology quizzes: diagrams, processes and terms

A biology teacher's plan for quizzes on diagrams, processes and terms, with the research, example questions checked at source, marking rules and a six-week plan.

The EdProcto editorial teamWritten and checked against the research it cites. Last checked . How the guides are made

Guides · By subject and level · · 13 min read

What should biology quizzes test besides recalled facts?

Biology quizzes for ages 11 to 18 should find out three things. On a diagram, can the student find a structure and say what it does? In a process, can they put the stages in order and say what drives each? With terms, can they tell near neighbours apart, such as mitosis and meiosis? Eight questions, ten minutes, every week.

Twenty definitions show who has learned twenty sentences. They cannot show whether a pupil can find the right ventricle on a drawing, say what follows once the chromosomes have lined up, or tell respiration from breathing.

Biology quizzes for ages 11 to 18 can find out all three: diagrams, processes and terms. EdProcto publishes this guide and builds a question shape for each of them; its page for teachers follows a quiz from your chapter to the code a class types in.

Below: the studies, nine questions to copy, a six-week plan and one full quiz, each fact of biology checked on 10 October 2026 at the source named beside it.

What does research say biology quizzes can find out?

Research backs testing all three, though much of it comes from university courses. We read the methods and results of Fisher et al. and Kalas et al., and the abstracts of the rest.

  • A drawing teaches, and it predicts. In two experiments Schmeck et al. (2014) had 48 and 164 eighth-grade students read a text on the biology of influenza. Those told to draw as they read outscored those who only read (d = 0.85 and 0.52), and the accuracy of their drawings tracked their test scores (r = .47 to .62).
  • A drawing shows what an essay hides. Pelaez et al. (2005) found that 70% of prospective primary teachers finishing an undergraduate biology course did not understand the double pathway of the blood, and that an interview about a drawing revealed more errors than an essay exam.
  • A reason finds what a right answer covers. Two-tier questions ask what happens, then why. Fisher et al. (2011) gave an 18-item test of this kind on diffusion and osmosis to 408 university students. Over 90% knew that particles move from high to low concentration; asked why, 27% to 44%, by group, gave the particles a wish for more room.
  • A concept inventory names errors of sequence. Kalas et al. (2013) wrote 17 questions on misconceptions about meiosis. Of 193 first-year university students tested after a course, 31% placed DNA replication in prophase I, and 20% to 34%, by question, told haploid from diploid cells by whether chromatids were drawn.
  • Questions on last week's work suit a biology lesson. Bergey et al. (2015) randomly assigned 128 students in 15 tenth-grade biology classes to daily warm-up questions, from diagrams or from text, on content taught 1 to 10 days before. Over four weeks both groups grew equally (d = .31 to .67). No group went without warm-ups, so the growth cannot be credited to them. Retrieval practice has the controlled experiments.
  • Quizzing vocabulary teaches the vocabulary. Pan et al. (2019) set ten-minute quizzes on jargon before lectures in undergraduate physiology and neuroanatomy. On exams up to 12 weeks later students did better on the quizzed terms, and not consistently on concepts.

We found no trial of sequencing questions on a biological process. The errors above are errors of order, which an ordering question can catch. Ordering and sequencing questions has the studies from programming.

What a curriculum and an examination board ask for

At key stage 3, England's national curriculum expects pupils to know the functions of the named parts of a cell and to explain breathing with a pressure model, and wants technical terminology used "accurately and precisely" (Department for Education, 2015).

In the multiple-choice section of its AP Biology examination, the College Board (n.d.) gives analysing visual representations 16% to 24% of the weight.

How do you test diagrams: find a part and say what it does?

Ask three kinds of question: a click to find a part on an unlabelled drawing, a choice between two pictures, and a match of parts to jobs. The answers were checked against the National Cancer Institute (n.d.).

  1. Find. On a heart drawn from the front: click the right ventricle. It is the ventricle on the left of the picture. A click on the other ventricle reads left and right from the viewer.
  2. Read. Two vessels are drawn in cross-section: which is the artery? The one with the thicker wall. The other choice has not linked wall to pressure.
  3. Say what it does. Match right ventricle, left ventricle, valves and coronary arteries to their jobs: pumps blood to the lungs; pumps it round the body; keep blood flowing one way; supply the heart muscle. The ventricles swapped: the two circuits are confused, the pathway 70% missed in Pelaez et al. (2005).

Marking. EdProcto's Hotspot, "Click the right part of an image.", is marked by rule: a click inside the box you drew, edges included, earns the points and any other click none. Compare two images, "Which of two images meets a criterion.", is one choice, right or wrong. Matching pairs, "Items in two columns, joined up.", is all or nothing until you switch "Partial credit" on, when each right pair earns its share: in the scoring code the swapped ventricles score 2 of 4.

To label a diagram in full, Label the parts has the student drag labels onto the image, each marked by rule.

How do you test processes: the order, and what drives each stage?

Name the starting point and ask for the order, then ask what causes one step. The same modules were the check.

  1. Order. Blood has just returned from the body to the heart. Put in order: right atrium, right ventricle, pulmonary artery, pulmonary vein, left atrium, left ventricle, aorta. The left side before the lungs means one loop, not two. The vein before the artery sorts vessels by oxygen, not direction.
  2. Order as cause. Put the events of breathing in, in order: the diaphragm contracts; the chest's volume increases; the pressure in the lungs falls; air flows in. "Air flows in" first: the air is thought to push the chest out.
  3. The driver. What makes air flow into the lungs: the pressure inside falling below the pressure outside, or the body needing oxygen? Give the reason. The pressure: air flows from higher pressure to lower. "The body needs oxygen" gives a purpose where a cause was asked.

Marking. Sequence the process, "The steps of a process, in order.", is marked by rule. Leave "Partial credit" off and only the whole order earns the points. Switch it on and the mark is the pairs of steps in the right relative order, less the pairs reversed, over all the pairs: at 7 points in the scoring code, the two pulmonary vessels swapped score 6.33 and the left side before the lungs 4.33.

Choose and justify, "A choice, then the reason for it. Tests why, not only what.", is a two-tier question with a typed reason. Half the points go to the choice, marked by rule. The other half go to the reason, which waits for you, so the question counts as zero until graded.

How do you test terms: the exact word and its near neighbour?

Sort statements between neighbours, ask for the term from its meaning, then apply it to a case. The definitions were checked against the National Cancer Institute (n.d.) and the national curriculum.

  1. Sort. Under Diffusion, Osmosis or Active transport: dissolved particles spread from a higher concentration to a lower one; it can happen with no membrane; only water moves, through a selectively permeable membrane; a substance moves from a lower concentration to a higher one; it uses the cell's energy. Two are diffusion, the third osmosis, the last two active transport. The third under Diffusion: osmosis is a second word for diffusion.
  2. Name. Name the process in cells that breaks down glucose to supply energy for the cell's other reactions. Respiration, cellular respiration or aerobic respiration. "Breathing": the two words are one idea.
  3. Apply. A cell takes in an ion already more concentrated inside it than outside. Diffusion, osmosis or active transport? Give the reason. Active transport: the ion moves against its concentration gradient, which takes energy. "Diffusion": the rule is known, its limit is not.

One caution: the National Cancer Institute (n.d.) uses respiration more widely, for the whole exchange of gases between air and cells, breathing included. Say in the question which meaning you teach.

Marking. Sort into groups, "Items dropped into named groups.", is all or nothing, or with "Partial credit" on a share for each item rightly placed: one of five misplaced scores 4 of 5. One word, "A single-word answer, matched exactly or with a slip allowed.", compares the typed answer with your "Accepted answers, one a line".

The switch "A slip still counts" starts on and forgives one slip in a word of five letters or more: in the scoring code "resperation" is accepted and "breathing" is not. Biology has neighbours one letter apart. Where both are answers in the same quiz, EdProcto keeps them apart: with "efferent" the answer to another question, "efferent" is marked wrong for "afferent". Asked alone, "afferent" still accepts "efferent" and "ileum" accepts "ilium", and "meitosis" passes for mitosis and meiosis alike. Switch the slip off on those questions. A written definition belongs in Define the term, "An open definition, graded against a rubric.", with a rubric for definitions.

What does a weekly ten-minute biology quiz look like over a half term?

It runs to eight questions in fixed slots: two on a diagram, two on a process, two on terms, and two brought back, from last week and from three weeks ago.

Week Slots 1 to 6 Brought back in 7 and 8
1 Cells and their parts Last half term's two most missed questions
2 Diffusion, osmosis and active transport Cells; last half term
3 Cell division Transport across membranes; last half term
4 The heart and blood vessels Cell division; cells
5 Breathing and gas exchange The heart; transport across membranes
6 Respiration Breathing; cell division

Nothing rides on it: show the answers at the end and leave the grade book shut.

Ready-made kits

EdProcto's kits for secondary science include two made by rule: "Organs and their systems", ten questions from twenty organs, and "Science, in order", six ordering questions in a fresh draw from nine sequences, mitosis and digestion among them. Rule-made drills are free without limit on every plan.

"Processes, in order (secondary)" is written by Procto AI from your own chapter, an ordering question for each process in it. Read every draft against the chapter.

A worked example: eight questions on cell division

This is week 3, with the EdProcto shape for each question, checked against the glossary of the National Human Genome Research Institute (n.d.).

  1. Click the centromere. Hotspot, on your drawing of one copied chromosome: the narrow region where the two chromatids join.
  2. Which of the two cells is in metaphase? Compare two images. The one with its chromosomes lined up across the centre.
  3. Match chromatid, centromere, haploid and diploid to their meanings. Matching pairs. One of the two identical halves of a copied chromosome; where the halves join; with one set of chromosomes; with two sets. Chromatid crossed with haploid: sets are counted by chromatids, as in Kalas et al. (2013).
  4. A skin cell is about to divide. Put in order: the cell copies each chromosome; the chromosomes condense and line up across the centre; spindle fibres pull the sister chromatids to opposite sides; two identical nuclei form; two separate cells are left. Sequence the process. Copying placed after the line-up, as if DNA were copied during division, scores 4 of 5 with "Partial credit" on.
  5. Name the stage in which the chromosomes line up across the centre of the cell. One word. Metaphase.
  6. Sort under Mitosis or Meiosis: makes two cells; makes four cells; the new cells have identical DNA; halves the chromosome number; makes eggs and sperm; used for growth and repair. Sort into groups. Mitosis takes the first, third and sixth.
  7. A human skin cell has 46 chromosomes and divides by mitosis. How many has each new cell: 23, 46 or 92? Multiple choice, "One right answer among options." 46. An answer of 23 halves the number, as meiosis does; 92 counts the copies and forgets the division.
  8. What moves the sister chromatids apart: spindle fibres attached at the centromere, the new nuclei forming, or the cell splitting? Give the reason. Choose and justify. The fibres, which pull one chromatid to each side.

How does EdProcto run a biology quiz like this?

For these biology quizzes EdProcto is the best tool, because one quiz holds a click on your own drawing, an order, a sort and a reason, and marks each in its own way: seven of the eight above by rule at hand-in, the eighth once you have read its reason.

Building. Start in the quiz maker on the home page with your chapter, choose a shape from the templates, and edit the questions Procto AI drafts. A picture is given by its address: paste its link into "Image address", and use your own drawings or images whose licence allows it. A Hotspot then asks for "The region the click must land in: drag a box on the image".

An order goes into "The items in the right order, one a line. Students see them shuffled." A match takes "Pairs", each a "Left" and a "Right". A sort takes "The groups, separated by commas" and "The items, and where each belongs". A definition has "Model answer (what a full answer contains)" and "Rubric (what earns the points)".

Marking and results. A typed reason or definition stays ungraded until you mark it or press "Ask Procto AI" on it. You release every score, and a score records one day's answers, not a grade. Every plan sees "Average score", "Median", "Passed" and "Median time", and under "Each question" the share who "Got it". The counts of who chose each wrong option come with the Educator plan's full analysis.

Plans. The Free plan takes thirty students a quiz, carries the core templates and marks by rule. Tutor raises that to 100, opens all 111 templates and brings "Ask Procto AI" for written answers. Educator raises it to 500 and brings the full analysis. See pricing.

Quick questions

How many questions fit a ten-minute biology quiz?

Eight: two each on a diagram, a process and terms, and two brought back.

Can an online quiz ask students to label a diagram?

Yes, one part at a time. EdProcto's Hotspot asks for a click on the part you name, and a match then asks for its job.

Should a typed biology answer forgive a spelling slip?

For most terms, yes. Where two terms differ by a letter, such as ileum and ilium, switch "A slip still counts" off, unless the same quiz asks for both: then each is already held to its own spelling.

Where does a biology teacher start?

Pick next week's topic, draw one diagram and write eight questions around it. EdProcto's page for teachers takes it from there to a class code.

References

EdProcto for teachers

A quiz from your material in half a minute, and the record of what landed.

School teachers setting quizzes and checks for their classes.

See the page for teachers

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