Getting Started/Give activity to students
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Before

Introduction

Once you are done creating an activity for your class, there are things to prepare before you give the activity to your students. Your students answer on paper, so you need their questionnaires and GradeChum answer sheets printed and ready.

In this article, let's explore what to do before giving the activity to your students with GradeChum.

Note: This article is about an activity your students answer on paper. If you chose Online as the activity type, there is nothing to print and nothing to scan: see Online activities for how to set when it opens, when it closes and how long each student gets. An activity from outside GradeChum has no answer sheet either: see Activities from outside GradeChum.

Steps

Note: You must have created an activity already in the GradeChum app before proceeding with these steps. Otherwise, create an activity first.

To know what to do before the activity, read the steps below:

  1. Invite your students into your GradeChum class by sharing the class code found in the Class Record tab of your class. This makes sure your students' papers are matched to the students in your class. See Invite students to class.
  1. On the Activities tab of your class, click the ⋯ menu on the activity's card, then click Download answer sheet & questionnaire. You can also open the activity and choose the same option from its ⋯ menu.
  1. The Download Answer Sheet & Questionnaire modal shows a preview of the answer sheet. It is made for long bond paper (8.5 x 13 in), but other sizes still work. If you wish to customize the answer sheet, click Customize. Otherwise, go to step 7.
  1. Under Shading items, open Format and choose how the choices of your multiple choice items look: Circles with letters above, Circles with letters inside, Boxes with letters inside, or Board exam.

Note: Board exam is grayed out when the activity has items other than multiple choice, or more than 100 items. Hover over it to see which one applies. A board exam answer sheet downloads only in the one sheet per page layout.

  1. Under Answer box items, the items that students write on are listed per test. Open the size beside an item and choose a new size for its answer box. Click an item to highlight its box in the preview, and click View question to read the whole question. You can also click a box in the preview to jump to its item.
  1. Click Save changes. You see "Answer sheet layout saved!", and you can now download the answer sheet with your changes. To leave without saving, click Cancel.

Note: Customize the answer sheet before your students' papers are scanned. Once an activity has results, the format and the sizes can no longer be changed, and hovering over them shows "You cannot change the format of this item because this activity has results already."

  1. Finally, click Download. GradeChum saves a zip file named after your activity with:
  • your answer sheet as PDF files in three layouts: 1, 2 and 4 sheets per page (a board exam answer sheet comes in 1 sheet per page only)
  • your questionnaire as Word (.docx) files, each also in a version with the answer sheet. If the activity has rubrics, you get a version with rubrics and one without
  • a questionnaire for each set, if your activity has sets

If the download is not ready

a. Download keeps loading

GradeChum is still generating your questionnaire files. While it does, Download keeps loading, and hovering over it shows "Questionnaire is still being generated." For an activity with sets, it waits until every set's questionnaire is ready.

If the files fail to generate, GradeChum asks for them again by itself and keeps checking every few seconds. Wait a moment for Download to be ready. If it keeps loading, close the modal and open it again later, or contact us at info@gradechum.com.

b. Answer sheet version is no longer supported

The activity was created with an answer sheet design GradeChum no longer supports, so there is no preview and nothing to download. This message also shows when the answer sheet could not be loaded, so close the modal and open it again first. If the message stays, contact us at info@gradechum.com.

c. The customize options look different

An older activity keeps the answer sheet design it was created with, so its preview and customize options can differ from a new activity's:

  • Under Shading items, you can also choose a Circle size: Standard or Large. It cannot be changed for the Board exam format.
  • A size that would make the answer sheet longer than 10 pages is grayed out. Make other answer boxes smaller to use it.
d. Error during download

Click Download again. On a phone, making the PDF files can take too long and you see "Something went wrong. Please try using desktop browser to download." Download the answer sheet from a computer instead.

Mock board classes

In a mock board class, you download the board exam answer sheets for the whole class at once instead of per activity. Open the class and click Download answer sheet & questionnaire at the top of the class page. On a phone, find it in the class's ⋯ menu. While the file is prepared, the button reads Downloading....

The button is locked while the class has no students, because "Answer sheets require a class record to determine the number of students and sheet IDs." Hover over it and click Import class record to add your students first. See Mock board classes.

And these are the things you need to prepare before the activity! Next, let's explore what to do during the activity.

Last updated September 21, 2026