Many instructors use question pools to quickly build assessments. Pools randomly draw from an entire question bank (check out How to Use Pools for more information).
If you’ve hidden certain content in your course (for example, a video on the Receivables Turnover Ratio within the Income Ratios chapter), you may not want students to be assessed on that topic. However, if a question on that topic still exists in the question bank, a question pool can still randomly draw it into an assessment.
Below are two ways to control which questions are assessed:
Use individual questions instead of a question pool
Remove questions from the underlying question bank
1. Use individual questions instead of a question pool
A question pool automatically draws a set number of questions from a bank. To guarantee that certain concepts are not assessed, you can remove the pool and manually select questions that will be included in the assessment.
Open the quiz builder: Locate the quiz in the Quizzes tab of the Control Center
Search for the Assessment you would like to edit.
Click the ⋯ (three‑dot) menu to the right of the quiz you would like to edit, and select Build.
Remove the question pool. Click the ⋯ (three‑dot) menu to the right of the pool and select "remove". Once removed, the quiz will not draw randomly from the bank
Add specific questions. Use the Add Question button to select questions individually from your bank. Detailed instructions for adding individual questions are in the article “A Guide to Creating Quizzes” —see section 2.3.1 Adding Individual Questions.
Important: Removing the pool means that all students receive the same set of questions (though dynamic variables will still produce different numerical values). This method preserves all questions in your bank so you can re‑add any of them later if you wish.
2. Remove questions from the underlying question bank
Instead of modifying the quiz, you can edit the bank itself so that undesired questions are no longer available to pools.
This method permanently removes the questions from your bank, so it should be used with care. In most instances, we recommend following approach 1.
2.1 Identify the associated question bank
Follow step 1 from section 1. Follow the steps to locate and enter the quiz builder for the relevant quiz.
View the pool details. Within the quiz builder, any question pools used will be listed under "Questions". Each pool includes the name of the question bank it draws from. Keep a note of the name of the relevant bank. This is the bank you will edit.
2.2 Access the question bank
Navigate to the Question Banks tab. From the Control Center, go back to the Quizzes tab.
Select the "Question Banks" tab. Follow the steps in “A Guide to Question Banks” —(see 1.1 Access through the Quizzes Tab) to access all banks in your course.
Search for the bank. Use the search bar to locate the bank you noted earlier, then click on its name to open it.
2.3 Remove unwanted questions
Review the questions. Within the bank, you will see every question currently stored. Here you can review and edit questions as well as identify any that you no longer wish to appear in assessments.
Remove unwanted questions. Click the ⋯ menu to the right of each unwanted question and select Remove.
Confirm your edits. Once removed, questions will no longer be available in pools or any assessments that draw from this bank.
Caution: Deleting questions from a bank is permanent. If you think you might use a question again later, consider using Method 1 above instead of deleting it. Once a question is removed, it cannot be restored.
By following either of these approaches, you can tailor your quizzes and exams so that students are assessed only on relevant content. Using individual questions gives you granular control while preserving the bank, whereas editing the bank directly ensures that pools never select undesired questions.