A question bank is only as useful as the questions you can get into it. Most lecturers start with a pile of questions already sitting in a Moodle course. You can move them across in the two plain text formats Moodle reads natively. GIFT handles the full range of question types. Aiken is for fast multiple choice. This guide walks through a clean import, from authoring to verification.
Quest is Lectimax's question bank module. It holds every question with its tags and lets you pull a balanced set for any assessment. You write the questions; Quest handles the storage and the import formats.
Export from Moodle or write the file fresh
When the questions already live in Moodle, export what you can rather than retyping. In a Moodle question bank, select the questions you want and choose export. Pick the GIFT format to download a plain text file. Moodle exports GIFT cleanly for most question types. When you cannot export, or you are starting from scratch, write the file yourself in a text editor. GIFT and Aiken are both plain text you can type directly. Keep one file per batch of related questions so an import error is easy to isolate. A file that holds a single topic also makes the eventual tagging easier. The questions in it already share their subject and difficulty. You can apply those in one pass instead of question by question.
Before you start the move, decide what has to survive it. If you only need the questions themselves for a quick quiz, Aiken is enough. If you want each question to carry its topic, difficulty and outcome into a bank you will grow for years, use GIFT. Attach the tags in a separate step. The import preserves the text of the question. It does not preserve the thinking you put around it.
How do you format multiple choice in GIFT?
GIFT marks the correct answer with an equals sign and each distractor with a tilde. The question text comes first, then the answers inside braces. Here is a worked example:
`` Which organ pumps blood around the human body? { =Heart ~Brain ~Kidney ~Pancreas } ``
The equals sign must sit directly against the correct answer, with no stray spaces on the right side. Otherwise Moodle treats the whole line as a distractor. Keep the braces balanced and one answer block per question. You can add feedback after each answer with a hash. The hash is for distractor feedback, and a double hash is for correct answer feedback. You do not need it for the import to work.
Format true or false and short answer in GIFT
GIFT also handles the other common types in the same brace block. A true or false question uses a capital T or F inside the braces. A question that is true reads {T}. One that is false reads {F}. A short answer question lists the accepted answers with equals signs. For example, {=giraffe =Giraffes} accepts either spelling. GIFT compares them literally and does not fix your casing for you. The numeric and matching types exist too. For a first import, stick to multiple choice, true or false and short answer. They cover most question banks.
How do you use Aiken for simple multiple choice?
Aiken is the simpler option when every question is plain multiple choice with four options labelled A to D. Write the question. Then put each option on its own line, starting with the letter and a period. Then add a line that says ANSWER, followed by a capital letter and a period. Here is a worked example:
`` Which planet is closest to the Sun? A. Mercury B. Venus C. Earth D. Mars ANSWER: A ``
Aiken has one strict rule: the answer line must use the same capital letter as the option. It must follow the options immediately, with nothing between. It cannot carry feedback or tags. That is why GIFT is the better format when you want the metadata to survive the move into a proper bank.
Verify the import before you trust the bank
However you import, check the count on the other side before you rely on it. Import into Quest and confirm the number of questions that landed matches what you sent. Then spot check a handful by reading them back. Two failures slip through clean imports. One is a miskeyed answer, where the equals sign sat on the wrong option. The other is a lost tag, where a question arrived without its metadata. Catch both before the questions appear in a live quiz. A question bank is only trustworthy when you have actually checked it. Do not assume it imported.
FAQ
Why use GIFT over Aiken? GIFT supports multiple choice, true or false and short answer. It also handles numeric and matching, and it can carry feedback. Aiken only handles simple multiple choice with no metadata. Use GIFT when you want the tags and feedback to survive the move.
What is the most common import mistake? A misplaced answer marker. In GIFT the equals sign must touch the correct answer, and in Aiken the ANSWER line must use the same letter as the option and sit right after it. One space or one shifted line turns a question into a distractor or breaks the file.
Can I import a whole course at once? Yes, but do it in small batches. A single text file with everything fails by line number, and finding the line is much easier when each file holds a few related questions than when it holds two hundred.
The questions stay yours; Quest handles the library and the formats. To see how tagged questions feed a fair assessment, read what AI grading in higher education really is once the import is done. Then review the full Lectimax feature set and pricing.