Building
Score it, band it, show them.
Scoring turns a survey into a quiz or an assessment. Each answer option can carry a score, each question can carry a weight, and scoring can be switched on or off per question. Bands are percentage-based, and the percentage is worked out against the points that were available to that specific respondent — because only questions they actually saw are scored.
The three controls
Per-choice score
Every option in a choice question can be worth a number of points. Right answers score, wrong answers score nothing, and partly-right answers can score something in between — a maturity assessment is rarely binary.
Per-question weight
A weight multiplies whatever that question scored. It is how you say "the safeguarding question matters three times as much as the one about the newsletter" without inflating every option value by hand.
On/off flag
Scoring is enabled per question. An unscored question sits in the same survey without touching the total or the maximum available — useful for the demographics you need but do not want to grade.
Only what they saw counts
This is the part that matters most when a survey branches.
If a question was hidden by conditional logic, it is not scored. It contributes nothing to the respondent's total, and — the important half — nothing to the maximum points available to them. The respondent is measured against the survey they were actually given, not against the survey in its entirety.
Consider a readiness assessment where the section on employing staff only appears for organisations that employ staff. Worth 20 points, five questions. An organisation with no employees never sees it.
- Naive scoring: they score 45 out of a fixed maximum of 80. That is 56%, and it reads as a failure caused by not having staff.
- What actually happens here: the 20 points they were never offered come out of the denominator. They score 45 out of 60, which is 75%, and the band reflects how they did on the questions that applied to them.
The consequence to design around: a heavily branched survey means different respondents are scored out of different totals. Percentages remain comparable; raw point totals do not. If you intend to compare raw totals across respondents, keep the scored questions out of your branching.
Bands are percentages, not point ranges
A band is defined as a percentage range with a label and a message. The respondent's percentage — their total divided by their available points — decides which band they land in, and that band is shown on the thank-you screen the moment they submit.
Defining bands as percentages rather than point ranges has two practical effects. It is what makes branched surveys comparable, as above. And it means you can add, remove or reweight a question without going back to redraw every band boundary — a point-range band set breaks the day you add a question, quietly, and usually after you have started collecting.
An example band set
| Range | Band | What the respondent is told |
|---|---|---|
| 0–39% | Getting started | Which two things to do first, and where to read more. |
| 40–69% | On the way | What is already in place, and the gap that matters most. |
| 70–100% | Established | Confirmation, plus the smaller refinements left. |
Illustrative — you set your own ranges, labels and messages.
What people build with it
Knowledge quizzes
Right answers carry points, and the band tells them how they did without a marker in the loop.
Readiness and maturity assessments
Weighted questions across several areas, with a banded result and next steps. Branching keeps irrelevant sections out.
Self-assessment and triage
A score that routes someone to the right guidance immediately, rather than to a queue.
Eligibility and grant screening
Points for the criteria met, with a band that tells the applicant where they stand before they write anything.
Building a scored survey
- Build the questions in the form builder. Scoring is set on questions and options, so it comes after the survey has a shape.
- Turn scoring on for the questions that should count, and give each option its points. Leave demographics and free text switched off.
- Set weights only where a question genuinely matters more. Weighting everything is the same as weighting nothing.
- Add the bands as percentage ranges, each with the label and the message the respondent should see.
- Add logic last, and take it as given that the maximum will move per respondent. That is the design working.
- Test it, then use Clear test responses before you publish. It removes the test data along with any uploads and partial responses those tests created. The rest of what a published survey can do is in the product overview.
Frequently asked questions
How is a survey score calculated?
Each answer option can carry a score, and each question can carry a weight. A respondent's total is the sum of the scores of the options they chose, multiplied by the weight of the question those options belonged to. Only questions that were actually shown to that respondent are included.
Are questions hidden by conditional logic still scored?
No. Only questions the respondent actually saw are scored. A question hidden by a logic rule contributes nothing to the total and nothing to the maximum available, so branching past a section never lowers a score.
How are result bands decided?
Bands are percentage-based. The total scored is divided by the points that were available to that respondent, and the resulting percentage decides which band they fall into. Because the denominator is per respondent, two people who took different routes are compared on the same scale.
Can scoring be switched off for one question?
Yes. Scoring has an on/off flag per question, so a question can sit in a scored survey without affecting the total or the maximum available.
Where does the respondent see their score?
On the thank-you screen at the end of the survey, as the band they landed in. The band is shown the moment they finish, without anyone in your team having to mark anything.
Build an assessment that scores itself.
Give the options their points, give the questions their weights, and draw the bands as percentage ranges. The respondent sees the band they landed in the moment they submit, with nobody in your team marking anything.
- Only the questions they were shown are scored
- Percentage bands, so branched routes stay comparable
- Scoring switches on and off per question
