# Google Forms alternative for exams | Evalmee

> What Google Forms does well, what it lacks for a graded exam, and a GDPR-compliant alternative hosted in France: negative marking, time limits, proctoring.

Source: https://evalmee.com/en/google-forms-alternative/
FR: https://evalmee.com/fr/alternative-google-forms/
ES: https://evalmee.com/es/alternativa-a-google-forms/
ES-ES: https://evalmee.com/es-es/alternativa-a-google-forms/
IT: https://evalmee.com/it/alternativa-a-google-forms/

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## A GDPR-compliant Google Forms alternative for graded quizzes and exams

What Google Forms does well, what it lacks for an exam, and the tools that close the gap.

Google Forms is fine for a survey or a low-stakes quiz; for a graded exam it lacks negative marking, a time limit per participant, proctoring and hosting in France.

### What Google Forms does well

Google Forms is free with a Google account, is shared through a link, and its Quiz mode assigns points to multiple-choice questions, grades them automatically and shows the participant the correct answers. Responses land in a Google Sheets spreadsheet. For a survey, a satisfaction questionnaire or a practice quiz, it is hard to beat.

Its limits are those of a form. A question's points never go below zero, question and option order can be shuffled but nothing is drawn at random from a [bank](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#question-bank), and there is no built-in timer: the form stays open until you close it by hand. Locked mode, which prevents opening another tab, exists only on Chromebooks managed by a Google Workspace for Education institution.

A practice quiz lives with all of that. An exam whose grade counts does not: it needs a grading scheme, a different paper per participant, a time limit, proportionate proctoring and a script that can be archived and challenged.

#### What Google Forms lacks for a graded exam

- A penalty for a wrong answer and a floor
- A random draw of questions from a bank, different for each participant
- A time limit per participant, with statutory extra time
- Proctoring of the exam: screen exits, copy-paste, second screen
- A graded script per participant, archivable as a PDF
- Data hosted in France

### Five Google Forms alternatives, depending on what you are looking for

Three of these tools are form builders, like Google Forms, differing in what they give away and where they host. The last two are assessment tools. Each card says who the tool is for, whether it has a free plan, and what it does not do.

#### Microsoft Forms

For institutions already on Microsoft 365: a Quiz mode with points and automatic grading of multiple-choice questions, integrated with Teams. Usable with a free Microsoft account; hosting in the Microsoft 365 tenant's region, as documented by Microsoft. Limitation: no negative marking, no draw from a bank, no proctoring of the exam.

#### Tally

For anyone who wants a polished form without leaving Europe: Belgian vendor, generous free plan according to the vendor, data hosted in the European Union according to its documentation. Limitation: Tally is a form builder; it is not designed to grade, score or proctor an exam.

#### Typeform

For conversational questionnaires, one question per screen, with an optional quiz score. Spanish vendor; free plan limited in responses according to the vendor. Limitation: the price follows the number of responses, and nothing is provided for a grading scheme, a time limit or proctoring.

#### Moodle

For institutions that already run a Moodle: the Quiz activity offers question banks, random draw, time limits and penalties, and pairs with Safe Exam Browser. Free and open-source software; hosted wherever the institution installs it. Limitation: it needs administration, and proctoring is not included. Evalmee imports a paper in Moodle XML format.

#### Evalmee

For the graded exam: a grading scheme with penalty and floor, a random draw per participant, a time limit with extra-time arrangements, proctoring set to match the stakes, PDF scripts. 14 days free with no credit card; data hosted in France, with Scaleway and AWS France. Limitation: it is neither a survey tool nor a form builder, and written answers are graded by a person, not by the machine.

The information about these vendors comes from their public pages at the time of writing; free plans change often, so check them before you choose.

### Google Forms or Evalmee: the table

Seven rows, the ones a head of teaching looks at before running an exam in a tool. Google Forms is not caught out here: it is a form, and it does what a form should do.

| Criterion | Google Forms | Evalmee |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Negative marking | Points per question, never negative | No penalty, cumulative or absolute penalty, with a floor; discordance scoring |
| Random draw | Question and option order can be shuffled; no draw from a bank | A set number of questions or exercises drawn from a bank, different for each participant |
| Time limit per session | No built-in timer; the form is closed by hand | Opening and closing times per session, a time limit per participant, extra-time arrangements applied automatically |
| Proctoring | Locked mode on Chromebooks managed by a Google Workspace for Education institution, otherwise none | Full screen, screen exits and copy-paste detected; second screen from the Pro plan up; webcams, microphone and identity checks on the Organization plan |
| Grade per criterion | No | Yes, in criterion-referenced mode, alongside the overall grade |
| PDF scripts | Responses gathered in Google Sheets; printing goes through the browser, with no per-participant archive | An archive with one PDF per participant, or a single PDF to print everything at once |
| Data hosting | Google's global infrastructure, per the Google Workspace terms | France, with Scaleway and AWS France, backups included |

Google Forms and Evalmee against the seven criteria of a graded exam.

Price is not in the table: Google Forms is free with a Google account, and the Evalmee plans are on the pricing page.

### When Evalmee is the right choice, and when it is not

Evalmee is the right choice when the grade counts. It is not the right choice when you want to collect answers rather than grade them.

Graded [continuous assessment](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#continuous-assessment) is the first case: an MCQ whose points go into the average needs a [penalty](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#negative-marking) fixed before the exam, a different paper per participant through [randomization](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#randomization), and a script that can be challenged. The exam is the second: a midterm, a certification, a competitive exam, with [proctoring](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#proctoring) set to match the stakes, remote or in a room. The placement test at the start of a course is the third: a [rubric](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#rubric) returns a grade per criterion, and the export serves as evidence. The grading scheme, random draw and proctoring are gathered on the [online MCQ](https://evalmee.com/en/product/multiple-choice-test-maker/) page; proctoring alone is detailed on the [exam proctoring](https://evalmee.com/en/product/monitor/) page.

Evalmee is not the right choice for a survey, a satisfaction questionnaire, an event registration or a call for feedback: there is no free-form form, every person is a participant enrolled in a session, and every answer is an answer to be graded. For those uses, Google Forms and the three form builders above do better.

#### Evalmee is the right choice for

- Graded continuous assessment, with a grading scheme fixed before the exam
- An exam, a midterm or a certification, proctored or not
- A placement test with a grade per criterion and an export

One department often uses both: Google Forms for the end-of-course survey, Evalmee to assess what has been learned. They are not competitors, they are two different uses.

### How do you move from a Google Form to an Evalmee exam?

Evalmee does not import a Google Form. The AI-assisted import, however, reads a Word, PDF or Excel document and offers its questions one by one, an Excel template accepts a full paper with its points, and a Moodle XML export is taken as it is.

The work is therefore to copy your questions into a document or into the Excel template, then to import them. Once inside Evalmee, the paper is structured into sections and exercises, the grading scheme is set on the multiple-choice questions, and participants are enrolled by importing their addresses or through a self-enrollment link. The import paths are detailed on the [create an exam](https://evalmee.com/en/product/create/) page; the plans, on the [pricing](https://evalmee.com/en/pricing/) page.

### Frequently asked questions

#### Why not use Google Forms for an exam?

Google Forms is fine for a survey or a low-stakes quiz. For a graded exam it lacks negative marking, a time limit per participant, proctoring and hosting in France.

#### Can an exam be time-limited in Google Forms?

No, Google Forms has no built-in timer: the form stays open until you close it by hand. In Evalmee, each session carries its own opening and closing times, the exam has a time limit per participant, and extra-time arrangements are applied automatically to the profiles concerned.

#### Does Google Forms support negative marking?

No. A question's points never go below zero. Evalmee offers no penalty, a cumulative penalty or an absolute one, a floor that prevents negative grades, and discordance scoring for health-school competitive exams.

#### Can an exam taken in Google Forms be proctored?

Locked mode exists, but only on Chromebooks managed by a Google Workspace for Education institution. Evalmee detects screen exits and copy-paste in a standard browser, a second screen from the Pro plan up and, on the Organization plan, adds video proctoring: webcams, microphone and screen sharing. The risk score closes no exam: the examiner decides.

#### Can the questions of a Google Form be reused in Evalmee?

Not directly: Evalmee does not import a Google Form. The AI-assisted import does read a Word, PDF or Excel document and offer its questions one by one, an Excel template accepts a full paper with its points, and a Moodle XML export is taken as it is.

### Move from Google Forms to a real online exam

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