Remote teaching has a way of turning even the most engaged students into passive screen-watchers. One of the simplest fixes? Build a quick interactive quiz directly inside Google Slides. No extra apps, no paid subscriptions, no steep learning curve — just a presentation your students already know how to open. This guide walks you through every step, from setting up your first question slide to tracking who actually got the answers right.
Why Google Slides Works Well for Quizzes
Google Slides is not a dedicated quiz tool, and that is actually part of its charm. Students are not logging into yet another platform. Teachers are not managing another set of passwords. And because Slides lives in Google Drive, sharing is instant.
More importantly, Slides supports hyperlinks between slides, which is the core trick that makes a quiz feel interactive. Click a wrong answer, and the presentation jumps to a “Try again” slide. Click the right one, and it moves to a celebration slide before the next question. Simple, but surprisingly effective.
What You Will Need Before You Start
- A free Google account
- Google Slides (available at slides.google.com)
- A clear list of your quiz questions and answer options
- About 30–45 minutes for a ten-question quiz
Write your questions out in a plain document first. Knowing exactly what you want to ask before you open Slides saves a lot of back-and-forth editing later.
Step 1 — Plan Your Slide Structure
A well-structured interactive quiz follows a predictable pattern. Before touching Slides, sketch this layout on paper or in a notes app:
- Title slide — quiz name, subject, your name
- Question slide — the question plus three or four answer options displayed as clickable buttons
- Correct answer slide — brief positive feedback, a “Next Question” button
- Incorrect answer slide — gentle encouragement, a “Try Again” button that links back to the same question
- Repeat steps 2–4 for each question
- Results slide — a congratulations message at the end
For a five-question quiz you will end up with roughly sixteen slides. That sounds like a lot, but most of them are quick copies of each other.
Step 2 — Build Your Question Slides
Open Google Slides and choose a clean, simple theme. Busy backgrounds make text harder to read on small screens, which matters a lot for students joining from phones or tablets.
Adding the Question Text
Click into the title text box and type your question. Make the font size at least 28pt so it is readable without zooming. Delete the subtitle text box if you do not need it — less clutter helps students focus.
Creating Answer Buttons
This is where the magic happens. Instead of plain text, use shapes as buttons:
- Go to Insert ? Shape ? Shapes and choose a rounded rectangle.
- Draw it on the slide, then double-click to type your answer option inside.
- Format it with a clear background colour — for example, blue for all answer options.
- Copy and paste the shape to create the remaining answer options, then update the text in each one.
Arrange the buttons in a 2×2 grid for four options, or stack them vertically for three. Keep spacing consistent so the slide looks tidy.
Step 3 — Link the Buttons to the Right Slides
This is the step that turns a regular slideshow into an interactive quiz. You will add a hyperlink to each answer button that jumps to either the correct or incorrect feedback slide.
- Click on the correct answer button to select it.
- Go to Insert ? Link (or press Ctrl+K / Cmd+K).
- In the link dialog, click Slides in this presentation.
- Choose the slide number that corresponds to your “Correct!” feedback slide.
- Click Apply.
- Repeat for each wrong answer button, linking them to your “Try Again” feedback slide for that question.
Step 4 — Design Your Feedback Slides
The Correct Answer Slide
Keep this upbeat but brief. A large green checkmark emoji, one line of praise (“Correct! Well done.”), and a “Next Question” button that links to the following question slide is all you need. Students do not want to read a paragraph — they want to keep moving.
The Incorrect Answer Slide
Be encouraging rather than discouraging. Something like “Not quite — give it another go!” works well. Add a “Try Again” button that links back to the question slide the student just came from. You can optionally include a small hint to help them think it through without giving the answer away.
Step 5 — Set Up Presenter View Correctly
For the links to work during a lesson, the quiz must run in Present mode, not in editing mode. Click the Slideshow button (top right) or press Ctrl+F5 / Cmd+Enter. In Present mode, clicking a linked button will jump to the correct slide automatically.
If you are sharing your screen over Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, share the specific browser tab rather than your whole desktop. This keeps students focused on the quiz and hides any open tabs you would rather keep private.
Step 6 — Share the Quiz With Students
There are two main ways to share:
- Teacher-led: You share your screen and control the quiz. Students call out or type answers in the chat, and you click the appropriate button. This works well for younger students or whole-class review sessions.
- Student-led: Share the file with students via Google Classroom or a direct link set to “Anyone with the link can view.” Students open their own copy in Present mode and work through it independently or in small groups.
If you want each student to have their own copy they can edit, use Google Classroom’s “Make a copy for each student” option when assigning the file. This prevents one student’s progress from overwriting another’s.
How to Track Results
Google Slides does not have a built-in gradebook, so you will need a simple workaround. A few options that work well in practice:
- Google Forms alongside the quiz: Run the Slides quiz as a review activity, then send a short Google Form with the same questions for graded responses. Forms handles scoring automatically.
- Chat log: During a live session, ask students to type their answers in the video call chat. You can review the log after class.
- Exit ticket: At the end of the quiz slide deck, embed a link to a Google Form exit ticket where students record their score on the honour system.
Quick Tips to Make Your Quiz More Engaging
- Add a countdown timer image or GIF to question slides to create a sense of urgency.
- Use consistent colours — for example, always blue for answer buttons — so students know what to click without reading instructions every time.
- Keep questions concise. Long question text is harder to read on a shared screen.
- Test the whole quiz yourself in Present mode before your lesson. Click every wrong answer to make sure the “Try Again” links all work.
- Duplicate your finished quiz file before editing it for a new topic. This saves rebuilding the structure from scratch.
Interactive quizzes in Google Slides take a little setup the first time, but once you have a template you like, creating a new quiz for a different topic takes a fraction of the time. Start with just three or four questions to get comfortable with the linking process, then scale up as your confidence grows.
