How to Add Negative Scoring to an Assessment

Negative scoring deducts points for wrong answers, making your assessments more precise and discouraging guessing. Follow these steps to enable it on custom questions in Testlify.

Supported Question Types

Negative scoring is available for three custom question types:

• Single Select
• Multiple Select
• Yes or No

Steps

1. Open or create an assessment. Navigate to the assessment you want to configure and open Assessment Settings.

2. Go to the Questions tab. Click the Questions tab to access the custom question tools.

   

3. Select a question type. Choose Single Select, Multiple Select, or Yes or No to open or create a question.

   

4. Enter your question and answers. Type the question text and add all answer options.

5. Expand additional options. At the bottom of the question editor, click Show Options to reveal advanced settings.

   

6. Set the negative score. In the Negative Score field, enter your desired penalty value — for example, -1. Each incorrect answer a candidate selects will subtract that value from their total score.

   

7. Save the question and assessment. Review all other settings, then save to apply negative scoring.

Tip

Negative scoring works best when candidates are expected to have confident knowledge of the subject. Avoid using it for exploratory or low-stakes questions where guessing is acceptable.

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