Complete beginner’s guide

This is one page that takes you from never having used WordPress to a live site where students take your quizzes, work through your courses and, if you want, pay for them. Each part says what to click, which settings to choose, and why. Read it in order the first time. Later, use the contents list to jump to the part you need.

Free or Pro? Parts 1 to 8 and Parts 16 to 18 use only the free plugin. Parts 9 to 15 cover Turgor Exam Engine Pro: its setup, selling, Exam Mode, Quiz Toolkit, Student Dashboard, reports and certificates, and student feedback. Where a setting needs Pro, this guide says so.

Part 1. Get a website ready

Turgor Exam Engine is a WordPress plugin, so you need a WordPress website first. If you already have one on WordPress 6.7 or newer and PHP 8.1 or newer, skip to Part 2.

What you need, in order

Piece	What it is	What to choose
Domain name	Your site’s address, such as yourcoaching.com	Short, easy to spell, no hyphens or numbers
Web hosting	A computer that is always on and stores your site	A WordPress host with PHP 8.1 or newer, free SSL (https) and daily backups
WordPress	The free software the site runs on	The one-click install in your host’s dashboard
A theme	The site’s look	Any lightweight, well-reviewed theme

Exams cause traffic bursts, with many students starting the same paper in the same minute. If you expect large batches, do not buy the cheapest plan. Read the hosting guide for what to compare, and what WordPress is if any of these words are new.

Install WordPress and sign in

1. In your hosting dashboard, find Install WordPress (it may be called Softaculous or 1-click install).
2. Choose your domain, set an admin username and a strong, unique password, and install.
3. Sign in at yourdomain.com/wp-admin. This screen is the dashboard. The black menu on the left is where you will do everything.

Three quick settings

1. Settings → General: check the Site Title, and that both addresses start with https://.
2. Settings → Permalinks: choose Post name and click Save Changes. This gives pages clean addresses.
3. Appearance → Themes → Add New: pick a lightweight theme and click Activate. You can change it later without losing any exams or courses.

Check your versions

Open Tools → Site Health → Info. Under Server, check that PHP is 8.1 or newer. Under WordPress, check the version is 6.7 or newer. If PHP is older, your host lets you change it, usually in a PHP setting in its dashboard.

Part 2. Install the plugin

1. Go to Plugins → Add New.
2. Search for Turgor Exam Engine and click Install Now. Or click Upload Plugin and choose the plugin zip from its WordPress.org page.
3. Click Activate.

A Turgor Exam Engine menu now appears on the left. Its entries:

Menu entry	What it is for
Turgor Exam Engine	The overview screen
Courses	Your courses and the course builder
Lessons, Sub-lessons	Lesson content
Quizzes	Quizzes and mock tests
Questions	The question bank
Quiz Settings	Starting values for every new quiz
Settings	Sign-in link, free courses, completion rule and emails
Migration	Only shown while LearnDash is active
Pro add-on	Only shown if Pro is not installed. It describes what Pro adds

You do not need LearnDash. It matters only if you are moving a LearnDash site across. In that case start with After migrating from LearnDash and How to migrate from LearnDash.

The plugin makes no requests to outside servers. Your students’ data stays in your own WordPress database.

Part 3. Choose your settings

Do this before building anything, so every new quiz starts the way you want. There are two screens.

Turgor Exam Engine → Quiz Settings

These are starting values for every new quiz. Any quiz can override them.

Setting	What it does	If you leave it blank
Time limit (minutes)	The time for the whole paper	Quizzes are untimed
Passing score (%)	The percentage needed to pass	Any submitted attempt passes
Retake limit	How many attempts each student gets	Unlimited attempts
Questions per page	How many questions show at once	The default is used

Click Save defaults. A typical mock-test setup is a time limit that matches the real exam, a passing score of 0 or blank, and a retake limit of 1 or 2.

Turgor Exam Engine → Settings

Sign-in link

Where the Sign in buttons on course, lesson and quiz pages send visitors. Leave Sign-in page address blank to use the normal WordPress login. If you use a login plugin or your own login page, enter its address. The page to come back to is added as redirect_to, or put {return} where your login system expects it. If your login plugin opens a popup from a CSS class, enter that class in Extra CSS class. Click Save sign-in link.

Free courses

Off by default. Normally a free course asks the student to click Enroll. Turn this on and any signed-in student can open a course set to Restricted + Free straight away, on the website and in the app. Their enrollment is recorded the first time they open a lesson or quiz. Visitors who are not signed in are still asked to sign in.

Course completion

Off by default. Turn it on to require a lesson’s own quiz to be passed before that lesson can be marked complete. On a site that already has students, this can stop some from completing lessons, so decide before you launch.

Quiz result emails

Off by default. Two switches: When a student passes a quiz and When a student does not pass a quiz. Open Customise the email to change the Subject and Body. You can use these tags in either field:

{student_name} {quiz_title} {percent} {score} {max_score} {site_name}

Enrollment emails

Off by default. One switch, When a student gains access to a course, whether they enrolled, an admin added them or they bought it. Tags:

{student_name} {course_titles} {site_name}

Click Save email text after editing.

Content protection and Google Play Billing (Pro)

These two cards belong to Pro. Content protection stops students selecting, copying, right-clicking and dragging images out of lessons and quizzes. Google Play Billing sells access inside your Android app. See Part 9 and Part 10.

Part 4. Write questions

Questions live in a question bank, so you write each one once and reuse it in many quizzes. You can add them from inside a quiz or from Turgor Exam Engine → Questions. Open Questions → Add question.

Fill in the question form

1. Type: choose how the student answers. See the table below.
2. Question text. Add an image to an option with Add image on its row.
3. Category (for example Physics): type an existing one to reuse it, or a new name to create it. Optionally set Topic and Subtopic, which break down a student’s results.
4. Difficulty: Easy, Medium or Hard.
5. Marks: what the question is worth.
6. Negative marks: leave blank to use the quiz’s rate, or enter a number to replace it for this question. A typed 0 means no deduction.
7. Hint (shown if the student asks) and Explanation (shown after submission).
8. Save.

The eight question types

Type	Student does	Marked right when
Single choice	Picks one option	They pick the one ticked answer
Multiple choice	Ticks every option that applies	They tick exactly the ticked answers
Fill in the blank	Types into gaps in a sentence	Every gap matches. Case is ignored
Free answer	Types a short answer or number	It matches any accepted answer. Ranges allowed
Sorting	Puts items in order	The order is exactly right
Matching	Picks a match for each item	Every pair is right
Rating scale	Picks a point on a scale	Never wrong. Earns that point’s score
Essay	Writes in a text box	A teacher marks it later on the Results screen

Writing each type

• Single and multiple choice: one option per row, tick the correct ones. Blank rows are ignored.
• Fill in the blank: write the sentence and put each answer in braces, like The powerhouse of the cell is the {mitochondrion}. Use {one|3} to make a gap worth 3 marks, and {[one][two]} to accept either answer.
• Free answer: one accepted answer per row, ticked. For a number range, write two dots: 6300..6400 accepts any number from 6300 to 6400, the way GATE and IIT JAM publish keys.
• Sorting: list the items top to bottom in the correct order. Students see them shuffled.
• Matching: each row is an item and its match, such as France and Paris.
• Rating scale: each row is a point on the scale, in order, with the score it earns.
• Essay: nothing to prepare. The rest of the paper is marked straight away and the result says how many essays are waiting.

Typing hundreds of questions is slow. With Pro, Quiz Toolkit imports whole papers from Excel, CSV, Word or Google Sheets (Part 12). Every setting is covered in Question types and The Questions screen.

Part 5. Build a quiz or mock test

1. Go to Quizzes → Add New and type a title, for example Full Mock Test 1.
2. Find the Questions box under the title. It holds the quiz’s settings, sections and questions.
3. Choose the settings below.
4. Add questions (see below).
5. Click Publish.

Quiz settings

Setting	What it does
Time limit (minutes)	The whole paper’s time. Blank means untimed.
Passing score (%)	The score needed to pass. Blank means any submitted attempt passes.
Retake limit	How many attempts a student gets. Blank means unlimited.
Questions per page	How many questions the student sees at once.
Shuffle question order	Each attempt gets its own order, kept within sections when there are any.
Shuffle answer order	Each attempt gets its own option order.
Negative marking and Deduct %	Takes that percentage of a question’s marks off for each wrong answer. Enter 25 for a +4 / -1 paper. Unanswered questions are never penalised.
Open to every signed-in student	Makes the quiz a standalone mock test with its own page. Anyone signed in can take it, with no course or enrollment.

The first four have a Use site default box. While it is ticked, the quiz follows your Quiz Settings from Part 3. Typing a value unticks it. A value that makes no sense, such as abc for a retake limit, is refused with a message and nothing changes.

Add questions

• Search questions by title or text finds questions already in the bank. Click Add beside one.
• Write a new question opens the question form inside the quiz. It is saved with the quiz and also appears on the Questions screen.
• Drag rows to reorder them. Edit opens the question on the Questions screen. Remove takes it off this quiz only.

A row marked cannot be marked stops the whole quiz opening for students until you fix or remove that question.

Split the paper into sections

1. Save the quiz once so the Sections table appears.
2. Type a title in Add a section… and update the quiz. Repeat for each section.
3. Each question row now has a section box. Choose one for each question and update again.

Students see each section’s title as a heading. Shuffling stays within a section. Removing a section keeps its questions, moved into the first section left. A separate timer and cut-off for each section needs Exam Mode in Pro (Part 11).

Building a paper like GATE with multiple-choice, multiple-select and numeric questions? Follow Build a GATE-style paper. Full reference: Building a quiz.

Part 6. Build a course

A course is an outline of sections, topics, lessons, sub-lessons and quizzes. Students see the same outline on the course page.

Create the course

1. Go to Turgor Exam Engine → Courses → Add New.
2. Type a title and a description. Add a featured image if you like.
3. Set access (see below).
4. Build the outline (see below), then click Publish.

Who can open this course

Find the Who can open this course box.

Choice	What happens
Open – no enrollment needed	Anyone can open it, even without an account
Restricted – needs an enrollment	Students must get access first. Then choose how, under If restricted, how students get in

If restricted	What happens
Free – one-click enrol, no payment	The student clicks Enroll for free
Paid – one-time purchase	Needs a Product built in Pro. See Part 10
Subscription – recurring payment	Needs a Product built in Pro

Without Pro, a new course starts as Free. Choose Free or Open so students can get in.

Build the outline

1. Find the Add content panel. The Adding to: line says where the next item will land.
2. Type a title and click Create and add. The lesson, topic or quiz is created and placed there. It is published if you are allowed to publish that type, and saved as a draft otherwise.
3. Or pick an existing lesson or quiz from the list and add it.
4. Drag items into a section, topic or lesson. Move the pointer left or right while dragging to step out or in a level. The + buttons add items without dragging.
5. Click Edit on any row to write its content. It opens in a new tab, so your unsaved rearranging is not lost.

Quizzes can sit in the course, a section, a topic, a lesson or a sub-lesson. Set prerequisites and completion rules per course. A passed quiz is ticked as done on the course page.

Free sample lessons

Each lesson row has a Free sample checkbox. Tick it to let people try that lesson before enrolling, and choose who: Anyone, no login needed or Signed in, not enrolled. A free sample is a good way to show a paid course.

Add videos to a lesson

Use the Lesson videos box on the lesson editor. Click Choose video for an MP4 from the media library or enter its full URL, add a poster and chapters, then paste the video’s tag, such as [turgee_video n="2"], into the lesson text where it should play. Videos play without Pro. Pro only adds signed links for paid videos on Bunny CDN. See Lesson videos.

More detail: The course builder.

Part 7. Make the pages students see

Students need pages to find, enter and track their work. Each is an ordinary WordPress page with a shortcode in it.

Create a page

1. Go to Pages → Add New.
2. Type the page title, for example Mock Tests.
3. Click the + button in the editor, search for Shortcode, add that block and paste the shortcode into it.
4. Click Publish.

Which pages to make

Page title	Shortcode	Shows
Courses	[turgee_courses]	A grid of your courses with lesson count and the student’s progress. New sites also list courses at /courses/
Mock Tests	[turgee_quizzes]	A grid of standalone mock tests with question count, time limit, negative marking and best score
Login	[turgee_login]	Sign in, lost password and reset password
My Profile	[turgee_profile]	Quiz stats, activity, courses with progress and scores over time
My Results	[turgee_quiz_results]	The student’s score history as a chart

To show only some items, add options, for example [turgee_quizzes limit="6" orderby="title" order="ASC"]. Other shortcodes show a course’s progress bar, its lesson list and breadcrumbs, or show content only to signed-in or signed-out visitors. All are in the Shortcodes reference.

Put them in your menu

1. Go to Appearance → Menus.
2. Tick your new pages in the Pages box and click Add to Menu.
3. Drag to order them, then click Save Menu.

If you set a sign-in page address in Part 3, make sure it points at your Login page.

Part 8. Test it as a student

Never launch without doing this once.

1. Go to Users → Add New and create a test student account with the Subscriber role.
2. Open a private or incognito browser window and sign in as that student on your Login page.
3. Open a mock test. Answer some questions wrongly on purpose, leave some blank, and submit.
4. Check the score against your negative marking. Wrong answers deduct, blanks do not.
5. Review each question. Check the explanation shows.
6. Open a course, enroll if it is restricted, and complete a lesson. Check the progress bar moves.
7. Look at My Profile and My Results.
8. Try it on a phone.

Back in your admin window, open Turgor Exam Engine → Results to see the attempt (Part 10).

Part 9. Set up Pro

Turgor Exam Engine Pro is a second plugin that installs next to the free one and adds its screens to the same Turgor Exam Engine menu. Everything in the free plugin keeps working without it. Pro pricing is on the pricing section.

What Pro adds

Feature	Where you find it	Part
Selling: Products, WooCommerce, Google Play, Orders	Products, Orders, Settings	10
Exam Mode: a computer-based exam screen	Addons → Exams	11
Quiz Toolkit: import and export questions	Addons → Quiz Toolkit	12
Student Dashboard	Addons, then a page	13
Class reports and certificates	Reports	14
Student feedback: ratings and problem reports	Feedback	15
Bulk import students, clone content, content protection, video hosting	Bulk Import, list screens, Settings, Video hosting	This part

Install and activate

1. Install and activate the free plugin first.
2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the Pro zip and click Activate.
3. Go to Turgor Exam Engine → License, paste the key from your purchase and click Activate. Until then, Pro features stay off and a notice says so.

Turgor Exam Engine → License

The screen shows whether Pro features and Updates are active, your plan and your renewal date. The key is re-checked twice a day.

Button or status	What it means
Activate	Turns Pro on for this site with the key you pasted
Check now	Re-checks the key straight away
Deactivate	Frees the key so you can use it on another site
Expired	Every Pro feature keeps working. Only new versions stop until you renew
Refunded or disabled	Pro features switch off until the key is re-enabled or another key is activated
Not recognised	Check the key was pasted in full

A failed check, for example while the licensing service is down, never switches Pro off.

Turgor Exam Engine → Addons

Lists the three add-ons: Exam Mode, Quiz Toolkit and Student Dashboard. Each card has Turn on or Turn off, a link to its settings and a link to its documentation. A switched-off add-on does not load at all. Turn on the ones you want now.

Turgor Exam Engine → Bulk Import

Creates student accounts and grants courses from a CSV file.

Column	Required?	What goes in it
email	Required	The student’s email address
first_name, last_name	Optional	Their name
courses	Optional	Course IDs or exact titles, separated by ;

An email that already has an account gets the courses added instead. Running the same file twice is safe. Tick Email new students a link to set their password to send them a welcome.

Duplicate a course, lesson or quiz

In the list of courses, lessons, sub-lessons or quizzes, hover over an item and click Clone. A course is copied with its lessons, sub-lessons and quizzes. A copied quiz uses the same questions from the question bank. Every copy starts as a draft.

Content protection

Under Turgor Exam Engine → Settings, switch on Content protection to stop students selecting, copying, right-clicking and dragging images out of lessons and quizzes. Editors and administrators are not affected. It discourages casual copying. It is not a way to make content impossible to copy.

Video hosting (Bunny CDN)

For paid videos on Bunny CDN, Turgor Exam Engine → Video hosting gives each lesson video a signed link that stops working after a few hours. Videos also play without Pro, from a full URL or the media library. Pro only adds the signed links.

1. In Bunny, open your pull zone’s Security → Token Authentication and copy the key.
2. In WordPress, open Turgor Exam Engine → Video hosting.
3. Enter your CDN hostname, such as your-zone.b-cdn.net, and the Token authentication key.
4. Set Links stop working after to between 1 and 72 hours, then save.
5. In each lesson’s Lesson videos box, enter the video’s CDN path, such as /videos/lesson-1.mp4.

Reference: Getting started with Pro.

Part 10. Sell your courses

Pro sells your courses as Products: one course, or several sold together. Payment goes through WooCommerce on your website, or Google Play inside your Android app, and access follows the order automatically.

Create a product

1. Go to Turgor Exam Engine → Products → Add new product.
2. Enter a Title and a SKU. A blank SKU is made from the title.
3. Choose How this is sold.
4. Enter the display Price. What actually charges is the linked WooCommerce product.
5. Set the access length.
6. Link the WooCommerce product and/or the Google Play SKU.
7. Under Courses granted, tick one course, or several for a bundle.
8. Set Status to Draft until it is ready, then Published, and click Save product.

Setting	What it does
How this is sold: One-time purchase	Pay once for access
How this is sold: Subscription	Recurring payment, kept going by each renewal
How this is sold: Free	One-click enroll, no payment
How this is sold: Open	No enrollment. Every course opens
Access length (days)	Blank means lifetime access
Access window	Fixed start and end dates shared by every buyer, such as until the exam date
Linked WooCommerce product	The WooCommerce product that charges for this
Google Play Console SKU	The Play one-time product’s ID, for app sales
Courses granted	The courses this product unlocks. Tick several for a bundle
Status	Draft or Published

On a saved product, Extend access moves everyone’s expiry date, and Manually enrol a student grants access to an existing account by email.

Sell with WooCommerce

1. Install WooCommerce from Plugins → Add New and connect a payment gateway in its settings.
2. Create the product in WooCommerce with its real price.
3. Pick it under Linked WooCommerce product on your Turgor Exam Engine product.

A purchase grants the courses as soon as the order is processing or completed. A refund, cancellation or failed payment removes them. A partial refund removes only the refunded items. With WooCommerce Subscriptions, each renewal keeps access going, and a subscription that is cancelled, expires or goes on hold removes access until it is active again.

Show your courses with prices

With Pro active, the [turgee_courses] grid becomes a storefront. It shows products a visitor does not own yet, with their price (the WooCommerce price, with the regular price struck through on a sale) and an Add to cart button, followed by any free or open courses. Course pages show Buy this course or Enroll for free. Other Pro shortcodes:

Shortcode	Shows
[turgee_my_courses]	A student’s own courses with progress
[turgee_continue_learning]	A button to pick up where they left off
[turgee_time_spent course_id="123"]	Time spent on a course

Sell in your Android app with Google Play

1. Go to Turgor Exam Engine → Settings and open the Google Play Billing settings card.
2. Enter your app’s Package name and the Service-account key file, the full path to the key’s .json file on your server, not a URL.
3. Click Save Play Billing settings.
4. On each product, enter the one-time product’s ID under Google Play Console SKU.
5. For automatic refunds, copy the Real-time notifications push URL and paste it as the push endpoint of your Pub/Sub subscription in Google Cloud.
6. In Play Console, use Send test notification. Last notification received shows it arrived.

A refund or chargeback in Play Console then removes access by itself, and a pending payment unlocks once it completes. Each change is confirmed with Google first.

Turgor Exam Engine → Orders

Lists every course granted to anyone, from any source: Google Play, WooCommerce, manual, free enrollment, bulk import or LearnDash migration. Each row shows its expiry and status.

• Search by name or email, or filter by source.
• Needs attention lists purchases that have not unlocked anything yet. Click Retry grant. If it says the SKU is not mapped, add it to a product first.
• Fix a Google Play order: paste a Play order ID, such as GPA.1234-5678-9012-34567, and optionally the student’s email, then click Check and fix. The order is checked with Google, linked to the student and acknowledged, so Google does not refund it after three days.

Before you take the first order

• Publish refund, privacy and terms pages.
• Place a test order and check the course unlocks.
• Check the payment gateway is out of test mode.

More: Selling courses and How to sell online courses and mock tests.

Part 11. Exam Mode

Exam Mode is the computer-based exam screen your students will sit on the day: a question palette, mark for review, a timer for the whole paper or for each section, sectional cut-offs, English and Hindi papers and an on-screen calculator. It is built from the quizzes you already have.

Turn it on

Under Turgor Exam Engine → Addons, click Turn on on the Exam Mode card. Exams are then under Addons → Exams. The quickest way to see it working: on the Exams screen, click Create a sample exam. It builds a 25-question SSC CGL-style mock with four timed sections, +2 / -0.5 marking and English and Hindi questions, plus a private page to try it on.

Create an exam

1. Go to Exams → Add New Exam and give it a title.
2. Under How should this exam get its questions?, choose Several quizzes (each quiz = one topic) and click + Add Quizzes to pick them in order, or One quiz (use its own question categories as topics), where each question category becomes a topic.
3. For each topic, set what it needs (table below). Students see only the topic name you give, never the quiz’s.
4. Choose the Timing.
5. Set the Passing percentage, Max questions per topic, whether to Randomize question order within each topic, and the Exam description / rules students read before they start.
6. Publish, then place the exam on a page or lesson.

Per topic	What it does
Marks per correct answer	What each right answer earns
Negative marking	Marks taken off per wrong answer
Evaluate first N answered questions	Only the first N answered questions count, for sections that cap attempts
Minutes	The topic’s own time
Cut-off (marks or %)	The minimum to pass this topic

Timing	What happens
One overall timer	One clock for the whole paper
One timer per topic	Sections are sat in order and each closes for good when its time runs out or it is submitted. A topic left without minutes gets an equal share of the overall duration

A student who scores below the cut-off in any section does not pass, whatever their total. A question’s own negative marks, set on the question, override the topic’s.

Exam formats

Formats save these settings so you can reuse them. Pick one under Exam format and click Load, or save your own with Save current settings as format. Built in: SSC CGL Tier 1 (4 sections × 15 minutes, +2 / -0.5) and IBPS PO Prelims (3 sections × 20 minutes, +1 / -0.25). Loading a format does not change which quizzes are picked, so add your section quizzes first, in the exam’s order.

Partial marks (JEE Advanced style)

On a multiple-choice question, tick Partial marks in the question form (it appears once Pro is installed), or set partial_marking to yes in a Quiz Toolkit sheet. A student who picks only correct options, but not all of them, earns that share of the marks. Two of three correct options on a 4-mark question earns 2.67. Picking any wrong option makes the whole answer wrong. The exam screen tells students which questions work this way.

Put the exam on a page

Add the shortcode shown on the exam’s edit screen to any page or lesson:

[turgee_exam id="123"]

• Add theme="light" or theme="dark" to fix its colours.
• To link the exam to a lesson, pick it under Lesson/topic this exam is embedded in. Submitting the exam then marks that lesson complete.
• [turgee_exam_history] lists a student’s past attempts on every exam, with their best and average score. [turgee_exam_history id="123"] lists one exam’s.

Who can take an exam: anyone who can read the page or lesson it is placed on. In a course, the course’s own rules apply. An exam that is unpublished, or not placed anywhere, is closed to students. You can always try your own exams.

Appearance and settings

In the Exam Appearance box: the colour theme, Require fullscreen and how many Fullscreen exits are allowed before the exam submits itself, the On-screen scientific calculator (laid out like the GATE and JAM one), the names of the two Question languages (English and Hindi by default) and the palette colours.

Exam Mode Settings (the Settings button on the add-on card): turn on Print / save as PDF on the result screen, and create or open the sample exam. Everything else is set per exam.

What students see

• A rules screen with Start exam.
• The exam: Save & Next, Clear, Save & Mark for Review, Mark for Review & Next, a palette of answered, not answered, not visited and marked questions, the time left and section time left, a language menu, calculator and text size.
• The clock is kept on the server, so answers are saved through a dropped connection and the student can carry on where they left off.
• After submitting: score and pass or fail, a section-wise result against each cut-off, accuracy by section, how they compare with others, their score trend, time per question, and a question review with the correct answers.

Reference: Exam Mode.

Part 12. Quiz Toolkit: import and export questions

Quiz Toolkit brings questions in from an Excel or CSV file, a Word document or a live Google Sheet, and exports any quiz back to Excel. Turn it on under Turgor Exam Engine → Addons, then open it from Addons → Quiz Toolkit.

Import a file

1. Under Import a file, choose an Excel (.xlsx, .xls), CSV or Word (.docx) file.
2. Pick the Quiz to add the questions to, or leave it on create from the file to have a quiz made from the file’s own quiz_title column or sheet name.
3. Click Import. The result links to the quiz (Edit, Preview) and lists any row that could not be imported, with the reason. Good rows are imported even when others fail.

Click Download a sample template for a ready-made file in the right format.

Spreadsheet format (Excel, CSV, Google Sheets)

Row 1 holds the column names. Case does not matter and spaces count as underscores, so Question Text is question_text. Each row after that is one question. Every sheet in a workbook is imported.

Column	What goes in it
question_text	The question the student reads
question	The type: single or multiple
answer_1 … answer_40	The options
answer	The correct option number, such as 2, or 1|3 for several
correct_1 …	yes beside each correct option (used instead of answer when present)
total_point	Marks for the question (default 1)
negative_points	Marks taken off when wrong, as a positive number such as 0.33. Blank uses the quiz’s rate
partial_marking	yes for part marks in Exam Mode
category, topic, subtopic, difficulty, hint	Optional. A new category is created if needed
message_with_correct_answer	The explanation shown after submitting
title	Optional label for finding the question later
quiz_title, quiz_content, quiz_category, quiz_tags	On the first question’s row only: the quiz to create

For a second language, add question_text_alt, answer_1_alt … and message_with_correct_answer_alt (_hindi and _hi work too). If more than one option is marked correct, the question is saved as multiple choice whatever the question column says.

Word format

Start each question with a line beginning Q: and mark the correct option with a * at the end:

Q: Which of these is heavier?
Type: single choice
A) A kilo of lead
B) A kilo of feathers *
Points: 2
Correct Message: They weigh the same.
Hint: Think about the units.

Options can be written A), A., A: or A -. Type is single choice or multiple choice. Points defaults to 1. Text before the first Q: is ignored.

Google Sheets

1. In Google Sheets, share the sheet as Anyone with the link. No sign-in is needed.
2. Paste its address under Google Sheet, pick the Quiz, and click Import now. A link that opens a particular tab imports that tab.
3. Tick Keep this sheet in sync daily to re-import it every day. Synced sheets are listed under Syncing daily, each with Stop syncing.

The sheet uses the same columns as a spreadsheet file. To avoid copies of the same questions on each sync, turn on Update duplicate questions in the settings below.

Export a quiz

Under Export a quiz, pick the quiz and click Export to Excel. The file uses the same columns as an import, so you can edit it and bring it straight back.

Quiz Toolkit Settings

Click the Settings button. These apply to every import:

Setting	What it does
Minimum role to import quizzes	Administrator (default), Editor or Author
Publish quiz on import	If off, new quizzes are saved as drafts
Remove existing questions	No (default), Remove from quiz only, or Remove from quiz and database. Questions used on another quiz, or already answered by a student, are only taken off, never deleted
Update duplicate questions	A question with the same title in the same quiz is updated instead of added again

If the server is missing the spreadsheet library, the screen says so. Word and Google Sheet imports still work. Reference: Quiz Toolkit.

Part 13. Student Dashboard

Gives each student one page with their scores over time, course progress, study streak and a question-by-question review of every attempt.

1. Turn on Student Dashboard under Turgor Exam Engine → Addons.
2. Create a page, for example My dashboard, and add the shortcode [turgee_student_dashboard].
3. Link the page from your menu.

Signed-out visitors see Please log in to view your dashboard. The dashboard follows the device’s light or dark setting. To fix it, use [turgee_student_dashboard theme="light"] or theme="dark". There is nothing else to configure.

What students see

• Overview: tests taken, average and best score, time spent, courses enrolled and their current streak, plus an activity heatmap.
• My Courses: each course’s progress, with Start course, Continue course or Review course.
• Performance: appears once they have taken a test. Every attempt with date, score, correct and wrong answers, skipped questions, the class average and their percentile. Topics shows accuracy by topic, and a leaderboard can be shown or hidden.
• View Full Review: any past attempt, question by question, marked correct, incorrect or skipped, with the explanation.

Class averages, percentiles and leaderboards refresh every hour. Reference: Student Dashboard.

Part 14. Class reports and certificates

Turgor Exam Engine → Reports

1. Go to Turgor Exam Engine → Reports.
2. Pick a course from Choose a course….

You see how many are Enrolled and have Completed the course, how many quizzes were sat and the Class average score, a Score distribution and a Roster. The roster shows each student’s course progress, quizzes taken, quiz average, when they were last active and when their access expires. Change a student’s expiry date in the roster and click Extend.

Certificates

When a student completes a course, a PDF Certificate of Completion is emailed to them automatically, with the subject Your certificate for …, and you get a copy. There is nothing to set up. To show certificates on your site:

Shortcode	Shows
[turgee_certificate course_id="123"]	The certificate for one course, with a Print / Save as PDF button. On a course page, course_id can be left out
[turgee_certificates]	All of the signed-in student’s certificates

If you build pages with Elementor, use the Certificate of Completion (Turgor) and My Courses Grid (Turgor) widgets instead. Reference: Class reports and certificates.

Part 15. Student feedback

Students can rate a course and report a problem from exactly where they find it, and everything arrives in one queue for you.

What students see

• Ratings: on each course page, students who can rate it see Rate this course, with five stars and an optional comment. They can change it later. Everyone sees the course’s average.
• Report a problem: under each lesson, Report a problem with this lesson. On each question in a quiz review there is a report link too. They choose what is wrong and click Send report. For a question the choices are The marked answer is wrong, The question is unclear or ambiguous, Typo or formatting problem, An image or diagram is missing or broken and Something else. A question report names the exact attempt, so you see what the student saw.

Turgor Exam Engine → Feedback

• Reports: filter Outstanding, Fixed, Dismissed or All. Write What was done about it, then click Mark fixed or Dismiss. Reopen brings one back.
• Ratings: every rating with its comment, student and course. Hide removes one from the course page and its average. Show puts it back.

If a report shows a wrong answer key, fix the question, then re-mark attempts on the Results screen (Part 16). Reference: Student feedback.

Part 16. Run it after launch

Turgor Exam Engine → Results

Lists every quiz attempt on the site. Only administrators see it. Filter by quiz, student and status: Submitted, Waiting for marking or In progress.

• Mark essays: filter by Waiting for marking, click Mark on a row, enter the marks beside each essay and click Save marks. The score updates at once.
• Reset retakes: lets a student take a quiz again after using up their limit. Their old scores are kept and marked retake reset.
• Re-mark: fixed a wrong answer key? Click Re-mark on an attempt, or choose the quiz and re-mark all its attempts. Essay marks already given are kept, and students are not sent a second result email.

Reference: The Results screen.

Reports, certificates and feedback (Pro)

Class reports and certificates are in Part 14. The ratings and problem-report queue is in Part 15. Check them after each batch finishes a course.

Keep the site healthy

• Keep WordPress, your theme and plugins updated.
• Keep daily backups, and test that you can restore one.
• Before a big exam, test with a group of friends opening the same paper at the same minute, and watch your host’s resource graph.
• Stagger start times into batches if your hosting plan is small.

Part 17. Fix common problems

The plugin will not activate.

Check that PHP is 8.1 or newer and WordPress is 6.7 or newer, under Tools → Site Health → Info.

A quiz is not listed on my Mock Tests page.

It must be published and have Open to every signed-in student ticked.

A quiz will not open for students.

Go to Turgor Exam Engine → Questions, filter by Cannot be marked, and fix or remove those questions.

Students cannot sign in.

Add a page with [turgee_login], link it in your menu and set the Sign-in page address in Settings.

A free course still asks students to click Enroll.

That is the default. Turn on Free courses in Settings if you want them in straight away.

A paid course is not unlocking after payment.

Open Orders and look under needs attention. Click Retry grant. If it says the SKU is not mapped, add it to a product first.

A video does not show.

Use a full URL or an MP4 from the media library. A bare CDN path plays only with Pro’s Video hosting.

A setting is refused when I save.

A value that makes no sense, such as text in a number field, is refused with a message. Enter a number.

Pro features are not showing.

Open Turgor Exam Engine → License. Until a valid key is activated, Pro features stay off and a notice says so. Click Check now. If the status is Not recognised, paste the key again in full.

I cannot find Exams or Quiz Toolkit.

Turn them on under Turgor Exam Engine → Addons. A switched-off add-on does not load at all.

An exam is closed to students.

An exam that is unpublished, or not placed on a page or lesson, is closed. Publish it and add its [turgee_exam id="123"] shortcode to a page.

An import skipped some rows.

The result lists each row that could not be imported, with the reason. Good rows are still imported. Fix the listed rows and import again, with Update duplicate questions on so nothing is added twice.

Still stuck? Use the contact page and include your WordPress and PHP versions and what you expected to happen.

Part 18. Where to go next

• What’s new in 0.4.0
• Question types, The Questions screen, Building a quiz
• The course builder, Lesson videos, Shortcodes reference
• Getting started with Pro, Selling courses, Exam Mode, Quiz Toolkit
• Student Dashboard, Class reports and certificates, Student feedback