Taking an exam

Once a deck is exam-enabled, you can sit an exam over it. This page walks the run-through, how grading works, and the settings that shape a session.

Starting an exam

Start an exam from an exam-enabled deck’s row menu (Exam). Custom and filter decks offer Start exam whenever their selection includes cards from an exam-enabled deck — so “every card tagged #midterm” can be its own exam.

You’ll first see a setup dialog, pre-filled from the profile. It shows how many cards are eligible and how many were skipped (invalid or not gradable), and lets you set the number of questions. From there:

1. DecksMD draws the questions (random or in file order) and optionally shuffles them.
2. You answer one question per screen. A header shows “Question i of N”, plus a countdown if the exam is timed.
3. Navigate freely — Previous/Next, or click any number in the navigator strip to jump. In end-feedback mode you can change answers until you submit; in immediate-feedback mode each answer locks and shows its verdict as you go.
4. Submit when you’re done (or the timer auto-submits). Unanswered questions count as incorrect — DecksMD tells you how many first.

Keyboard

Key	Action
1–9 / a–i	Select an option
← / →	Previous / next question
Enter / Space	Submit or advance
N	Show notes / explanation
Esc	Quit the exam

Caution

An in-progress exam lives only in memory — if you close Obsidian mid-exam, the attempt is lost (DecksMD confirms before you quit).

Your results

The results screen shows your score as a percentage, pass or fail against the pass threshold, and the time you used. Below that is a per-question review: your answer, the correct answer, whether you got it right, and the explanation notes on demand. You’ll also see your previous attempts for this same selection, so you can watch your score climb. Retake starts a fresh draw. Results are only saved when this screen appears.

How answers are graded

• Multiple-choice is graded on the set of options you picked — it must match the correct set exactly (all-or-nothing). The text of the options is never compared.
• Type-in (short answer and fill-in-the-blank) grading is a per-profile mode:
  • Tolerant (default) — forgives typos. Very short answers need an exact match; longer answers pass on a close match.
  • Exact — must match after ignoring case, extra spaces, and accents.
  • Self-graded — you type your answer, the correct one is revealed, and you mark yourself right or wrong.

Under Exact or Tolerant, a card whose answer is an image/embed or is very long can’t be string-graded — it’s flagged and skipped. Fix it by shortening the answer, or switch the deck to self-graded.

Worth knowing before you sit one

An exam is one sitting, and a few of its rules are deliberate rather than incidental:

• An exam runs until you submit it. Closing Obsidian mid-exam loses the attempt — you are asked to confirm before that can happen. Exams are meant to be short enough that this is a guard rather than a real risk.
• Unanswered questions count as incorrect. Any other rule would make one score incomparable with the next. The confirmation dialog tells you how many you have left blank before you submit.
• A typed answer’s verdict is final. There is no per-question override, because an objective grade has to stay objective. If you want judgement in the loop, set the deck’s grading mode to self-graded instead.
• Multi-select is all or nothing. Getting three of four correct options scores zero for that question, which keeps scores comparable between attempts.
• Image-occlusion and canvas spatial cards are skipped. There is no exam presentation for them. The setup dialog tells you how many cards were skipped, so a short exam is never a mystery.

Exam settings

Set per profile, under its Exam settings:

Setting	Default	What it does
Question count	All eligible	Draw this many questions from the pool (0 = all).
Time limit	Off	Countdown in minutes; expiry auto-submits (0 = untimed).
Pass score	60%	Threshold for pass/fail on the results screen.
Shuffle questions	On	Randomize question order (presentation only).
Shuffle options	On	Randomize option order within a question.
Feedback timing	End	Show verdicts at the end, or immediately after each answer.
Selection mode	Random	Draw randomly, or sequentially in file order.
Typed grading	Tolerant	How short answers are graded (see above).
Option labels	Letters	Label options a), b), c)… or 1), 2), 3)…