How to create a multiple choice quiz in PHP and MySQL

In this article, you will learn to create a multiple choice quiz in PHP and MySQL. Today, online quiz has a lot of advantages. It is considered an easy solution to conduct quiz, engage your audience, large number of participants and randomizing questions. Also beneficial for security and confidentiality of quiz questions and answers and no instructor needed. It also saves paper, time, money and it's more secure.

Creating Database

A database need to be created to store the information about questions, options and correct answers. So let's create a database using the following query. Here is a table 'questions' that contain all the quiz questions.

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `questions` (
  `qid` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `question` varchar(150) NOT NULL,
  `is_enabled` int(11) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`qid`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=5 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

INSERT INTO `questions` (`qid`, `question`, `is_enabled`) VALUES
(1, 'Which function is used to reverse the order of elements in an array?', 1),
(2, 'Which function is used to return character from the ASCII value?', 1),
(3, 'Which function is used to check the existence of a constant?', 1),
(4, 'Which function is used to return the last element of an array?', 1);

Here is a table 'quiz_options' that contains all the quiz options -

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `quiz_options` (
  `option_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `qid` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `option` varchar(150) NOT NULL,
  `is_enabled` int(11) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`option_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=17 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

INSERT INTO `quiz_options` (`option_id`, `qid`, `option`, `is_enabled`) VALUES
(1, 1, 'array_rev()', 1),
(2, 1, 'array_reverse()', 1),
(3, 1, 'reverse()', 1),
(4, 1, 'array_end()', 1),
(5, 2, 'chr()', 1),
(6, 2, 'ascii()', 1),
(7, 2, 'asc()', 1),
(8, 2, 'return_chr()', 1),
(9, 3, 'define()', 1),
(10, 3, 'const()', 1),
(11, 3, 'defined()', 1),
(12, 3, 'exist()', 1),
(13, 4, 'end()', 1),
(14, 4, 'arr_end()', 1),
(15, 4, 'last()', 1),
(16, 4, 'end()', 1);

At last, we create a table 'quiz_answer' for storing the correct answer of the quiz -

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `quiz_answer` (
  `qa_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `qid` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `option_number` int(11) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`qa_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=5 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

INSERT INTO `quiz_answer` (`qa_id`, `qid`, `option_number`) VALUES
(1, 1, 2),
(2, 2, 1),
(3, 3, 3),
(4, 4, 4);

Source Code

These are the PHP source code for multiple choice questions and answers. For simplicity, we have used the MySQLi object oriented programming to simplify the database connection code -

quizclass.php

First, we have taken variables for database credentials, please replace with your credentials. Next, we have taken constructor function for database connectivity code.

<?php

class Quiz {
// Database credentials
private $host     = 'hostname';
private $username = 'username';
private $password = 'password';
private $database = 'dbname';
public  $db;

public function __construct(){
if(!isset($this->db)){
	// Connect to the database    
	try {
	$this->db = new mysqli($this->host, $this->username, $this->password, $this->database);
	}catch (Exception $e){
	$error = $e->getMessage();
	echo $error;
	}
}
}
public function get_questions(){
 $select = "SELECT * FROM `questions` where is_enabled = '1' ";
 $result = mysqli_query($this->db ,$select);
 return mysqli_fetch_all($result);
}
public function quiz_options($qid) {
 $select = "SELECT * FROM `quiz_options` where qid = '$qid' AND is_enabled = '1'  ";
 $result = mysqli_query($this->db ,$select);
 return mysqli_fetch_all($result);
} 
public function answer($qid) {
 $select = "SELECT * FROM `quiz_answer` where qid = '$qid' ";
 $result = mysqli_query($this->db ,$select);
 return mysqli_fetch_all($result);
} 
}
?>

index.php

This is the main file that we will call on the browser. In this, we have imported the 'quizclass.php' and loop over the questions and options data. When the user submits the form, it will redirect to the 'score.php' page.

<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Multiple Choice Questions and Answers</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css">
</head>
<body>
<?php
	include 'quizclass.php';
	$db = new Quiz();
	$quesions = $db->get_questions();

?>
<div class="container">
<h1>Multiple Choice Questions Answers</h1>
<p>Please fill the details and answers the all questions-</p>
<div class="form-group">
<form action="score.php" method="post">
<?php
foreach($quesions as $ques) {
$options = $db->quiz_options($ques[0]);

?>
<h4><?php echo $ques[1]; ?></h4>
<div class="input-group-text" style="text-align: left; font-size: 18px;"> 
<ol>
<?php
foreach($options as $option) { 
 echo "<li><input type='radio' name='".$option[2]."' value='".$option[1]."' required/> ".$option[3]."</li>";
}
?>
</ol>
</div>

</div>
<div class="form-group">
<input type="submit" value="Submit" name="submit" class="btn btn-primary"/>
</div>
</form>
</div>
</body>
</html>

score.php

In this page, we collect the post data and calculate the score of the user. For this, we have imported the 'quizclass.php' database class file and compared the correct answer with user.

<?php 
include 'quizclass.php';
$db = new Quiz();
$score = 0;
foreach($_POST as $k=>$v)
{
	$answer = $db->answer($k);
	if($answer[0][2] == $v) { // option is correct
		$score++;
	}
}
$score = $score	/ 4 *100;
if($score < 50)
{
	echo '<h2>You need to score at least 50% to pass the exam.</h2>';
}
else {
	echo '<h2>You have passed the exam and scored '.$score.'%.</h2>';
}
?>

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