How to set a fact drill, a quiz or a full examination paper out of the lessons already in your Wake apps — and get the mark scheme with it. And how to set reading, which is the other half of the same job: something for a pupil to read, and a drill on what was in it.
You can read this before you buy anything. Nothing here needs an account.
This app writes papers for you out of lessons that are already written. It knows fifteen subjects — nine for older pupils sitting examinations, and the six young children's apps:
| Subject | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Chemistry | AP, Cambridge IGCSE and A Level, IB, and Ghana's JHS and SHS |
| Biology | AP, Cambridge IGCSE and A Level, IB, and Ghana's JHS and SHS |
| Physics | AP, Cambridge IGCSE and A Level, IB, and Ghana's JHS and SHS |
| Computing and ICT | Phones, laptops and AI; Ghana's JHS and SHS; Cambridge; IB |
| English | IELTS, TOEFL, the SAT, Duolingo, and Cambridge IGCSE English |
| Mathematics | IGCSE, SAT, IB, Cambridge A Level, AP, and Ghana's JHS and SHS |
| BECE (every JHS subject) | English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, RME, Computing, Career Technology, Creative Arts and French |
| Cambridge Primary and Lower Secondary | Maths, English and Science, Stages 1 to 9, with Checkpoint practice |
| IB Primary and Middle Years | English, Maths and Science, Kindergarten to MYP 3 |
| Knowing numbers | Counting, numerals and number words to 100, counting on, taking away |
| Easy sums | Every sum whose answer is still one digit, ten-frames, the missing number |
| Quick sums past ten | The forty-five sums that cross ten, and double ten-frames |
| Times tables | Every product to 12 × 12, table by table, arrays, and 7 × ? = 56 |
| Colours and fractions | Eight colours, colouring in, how many out of how many, the written fraction |
| First reading and writing | First letters, reading a word, writing it, muddled letters, sentences, rhymes |
Those six apps do not have their questions written down — they make one up every time a child presses a button. So this app makes its own, from the same rules. Five of the six never need a connection, not even the first time; only First reading and writing fetches anything, because its list of words is real and it grows.
Their papers have pictures on them: counters to count, ten-frames, arrays for the times tables, groups of coloured circles for fractions, a box to draw in, and the reading app's own picture for each word.
What colour is this? — and it says so on the topic itself. Everything else in Colours and fractions works in black and white, because the question is how many, not which colour. Colour it in needs no colour printing at all, only crayons.
A fact drill also works differently for these six: there are no written lessons behind them, so the app cannot look a meaning up. You write the meanings yourself, and the app says so before you start.
You pick a subject and the topics. The app writes the questions. You then change anything you like — the wording, the marks, the order — throw out what does not suit your class, and add questions of your own. Nothing it suggests is fixed.
Every question can be reworded or deleted, and you can type your own. The app is doing the tedious part — finding the questions, laying out the page, adding up the marks and writing the mark scheme — not deciding what your class should be asked.
It does not mark writing. Multiple choice it can mark, because there is only one right letter. Anything a pupil writes in sentences is put in front of you to mark yourself, exactly as it would be on paper.
It also sends nothing anywhere. Your papers, your school's name and your school's badge stay on this device.
Type the name of your school and your own name, and press Start. Your free trial begins by itself — no card, nothing to fill in.
Then press ✚ Make a paper. There are six short screens, and you can go back at any point without losing what you have already chosen:
The questions are fetched from that app once and then kept on this device. It can take a minute on a slow connection. After that, the subject works with no internet at all — including in a classroom with no signal.
On the Details screen you can choose a picture of the school badge from this device. It is printed at the top of the paper and remembered for your next one. It never leaves this device, and it is not included when you send a paper as a link.
▲ Back to the topOne page. You list the terms you want drilled — one on each line — and the app looks each one up in the lessons you chose and writes the meaning.
Suggest terms from these topics fills the box for you with terms it has found. Cross out any you do not want, and add your own.
There are three shapes, and they all fit on one sheet:
| Shape | What the pupil does |
|---|---|
| Write the meaning | The term is printed with lines beside it. The pupil writes what it means. |
| Match term to meaning | Two shuffled columns. The pupil writes the letter of the matching meaning. |
| Fill in the missing word | The meaning is printed with the term taken out of it. The pupil writes it in. |
It will say so, and leave the box empty for you to write. It does this on purpose: a sentence that merely mentions a word is usually not a sentence that defines it, and printing the wrong meaning under the right word would be worse than printing nothing. If a term comes up empty, either write it yourself, or go back and choose more topics for it to look in.
Or press 📖 Look it up beside the word. It looks through all the lessons in that subject, then any other subject already on your phone, then the word list from Comprehension.Essay.Ap, and shows you what it found. Press Use this to put it in the box. If the word is not in any of them, it offers to open the Cambridge Dictionary in a new tab. That needs the internet, and only the word is sent. The same button is beside every key term when you set a reading.
Two pages, in the shape most teachers use: Section A multiple choice, Section B short answers. Fifteen and six to start with; change the numbers to whatever you want.
The multiple-choice questions come ready-made. The short answers are made by taking a written question and dropping its four choices — and a question that would mean nothing without them (“Which of these is a compound?”) is left out rather than printed with a blank line under it.
The letters A, B, C and D are shuffled on every paper, so the right answer is never always in the same place.
▲ Back to the topFor the end of term, a mock, or practice. You build the sections yourself. For each one you set what it is called, the line of instructions under the heading, what kind of question, how many, the marks, and how many lines a pupil gets to write on.
| Kind of question | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Multiple choice | Four answers; the pupil circles a letter. |
| Short answer | A question and lines to write on. |
| Structured | One heading with parts (a), (b), (c), all on the same topic. |
| Your own question | An empty question you write yourself — an essay, a calculation, anything. |
Add as many sections as you need with ✚ Another section.
The app tells you when there were not enough questions of that kind in the topics you chose, and says which sections are short. Choose more topics, or ask for fewer questions. It never pads a paper out with something that does not fit.
A paper asks a pupil what they already know. Reading is the other half: you give them something to read, and the app walks them through what was in it — the key terms, the formulae, the way the words are working — and then drills them on it.
Press ✚ Assign reading topics on your home screen, under Make a paper.
The next screen asks one question that changes everything after it:
In the colour map, only the words it is sure of are coloured. Everything else is left in plain ink, and it never asks a question about a word it could not place. A word that is two things at once in ordinary English — that, since, like, only — is never labelled at all. A wrong label taught confidently would be worse than no label, and a pupil reading alone has nobody there to correct it.
Everything, as always. The app shows you what it found and you edit it: what to look for, the key terms and their meanings, the formulae, and every question in the drill — reword one, change which answer is right, throw it out, or write your own.
The app only writes a meaning under a term when the passage really defines it. A great deal of good teaching writing never does — two whole physics lessons on the kinematic equations contain not one sentence of that shape — and rather than put a sentence that merely mentions the word underneath as though it were its meaning, the app leaves it blank and asks you. Fill one in and it joins the drill. Leave it and the term is still used for the fill-the-gap questions, and on the printed sheet it comes out with a line for the pupil to write the meaning on themselves.
If you fill some in, press ↻ Build them again at the bottom to make the questions over. Anything you have reworded yourself is kept.
Every answer, right or wrong, is followed by why. A drill that only says "wrong" teaches a pupil to guess faster.
It marks itself on the pupil's own phone and tells them why after every answer, which is what makes it teach — and that means the answers travel with it. A determined pupil could pull the link apart and find them. Set a reading as homework and as revision; set a paper when the marks are to count. A paper's link carries no answers at all.
When a message comes back, paste it into the same box on your home screen that takes a paper's answers — the app can tell which is which. What you get is not a script to mark: it is how long they read for, how much they found with the passage in front of them, how much they held without it, and exactly which questions they still miss.
Open it from your home screen and press 🗑 Delete it (on a reading you have not finished, the button is at the bottom of the first screen). There is no undo. What pupils have already sent back is kept. A pupil who already has the link can still open it until it runs out, because the link lives on our website, not on your phone.
▲ Back to the topOn the Questions screen every question has its own marks box. Multiple choice starts at one mark; change any of them. The totals for each section and for the whole paper are shown at the top and change as you type.
The marks are printed in the right-hand margin of the paper, in square brackets, the way an examination paper has them, and the total goes in the heading.
Press 📋 Mark scheme on the finished paper. You get a separate sheet with the number of each question, the answer, the marks, and — where the lesson had one — a short note saying why it is right, for whoever is marking.
It is not part of the pupil's paper and it says so at the top. Do not hand it out by mistake.
Press 🖨️ Print. The paper comes out as real A4, with proper margins and the questions kept whole rather than split across a page break.
Press 📄 Save as PDF on a finished paper. The app tells you which button to press next, because it is different on every kind of device:
| On this | Press this |
|---|---|
| An Android phone | At the top, where it names a printer, choose Save as PDF, then the round save button. |
| An iPhone | Press the share button (a square with an arrow out of it) and choose Save to Files — or send it straight to WhatsApp from there. |
| A computer | Where it says Destination or Printer, choose Save as PDF, then Save. |
The file is named after the paper — End of Term Two Quiz - Chemistry - JHS 2.pdf — so a phone full of papers is still findable. A mark scheme and a marked answer sheet each get their own name too, and a marked sheet is named after the pupil.
Your phone already knows how to make one, and it makes a proper one. Building a second PDF maker inside the app would mean downloading extra code onto every teacher's phone, for a worse result. This way costs a school nothing.
There are two ways, and you can use both.
📱 Write on this device hands your phone or laptop to one pupil. They type their name, answer the paper, and press I have finished. Their answers go straight into your list, ready to mark. Good for one pupil catching up, or a test with no phones in the room.
🔗 Send a link makes a link you can send on WhatsApp. A pupil opens it on their own phone, answers the paper, and the app gives them a message to send back to you. You paste that message into the box on your own screen under Answers sent back to you.
The link is short — something like wakelearningapps.com/drillquiz/#p=K7F3QX9M.
To make that possible, the paper's questions are kept on our website, and the
pupil's phone fetches them when the link is opened. They are deleted by themselves after
about six months. (Links used to carry the whole paper inside them, but they grew so long
that WhatsApp on an iPhone opened only the first part, and pupils never saw their paper.)
What is kept is only what the pupil sees: no right answers, no mark scheme, no school badge, and nothing about any pupil. Their answers still come back to you inside a message, never through our website. A paper you only print never leaves your phone.
If our website cannot be reached when you press Send a link — no internet in the staff room, say — the app makes the old long link instead and tells you so. Some phones, iPhones especially, will open only part of a long link, so connect and press it again.
A link with a paper in it opens for anybody you send it to, even while the app itself is still closed to the public. They see the paper and nothing else — no prices, nothing that can be bought, and nothing kept on their phone.
Every answer sheet appears on your home screen with the pupil's name and their mark so far. Open one and you see their paper with their answers in it.
Open a pupil's answers and press 📤 Send it back to the pupil. It offers three things, because they are not the same:
| Choice | What the pupil gets |
|---|---|
| Their marks and the right answers | Their score, then every question: right, or what they put and what the answer was. Do not send this while other pupils have still to sit the paper. |
| Only their score | Just the mark and the percentage. Safe to send to one pupil before the rest of the class has written it. |
| The whole marked script as a PDF | The closest thing to handing the paper back: their paper, their answers, your marks in the margin. Choose Save as PDF, then send the file on WhatsApp. |
Open the finished paper and press 📒 Marks to my mark book. It appears once at least one pupil has answered.
If your mark book is on the same device you do not need the message at all: open your class in Wake Mark.Book.Ap, press 📥 Marks from the Wake apps, then Look on this device. The paper is there waiting.
The paper arrives in your mark book as one piece of work, out of that paper's own total, on the day you set it — a fact drill as classwork, a quiz as a test, an examination paper as an exam. It counts towards the average at that kind's usual weight, because you set the paper and you marked it. You can change the weight like any other entry.
That is deliberately different from the learning apps, whose practice arrives as a weekly average and counts nothing until you give it a weight.
It finds the entry it made before and corrects the marks, rather than making a second one. So you can bring a paper in as soon as the answers arrive, finish marking the writing afterwards, and bring it in again.
Pupils who wrote on real paper simply have no mark yet — the entry shows them as left to mark, and you type their marks into the mark book as usual.
Two things can go wrong, and the app says which. Either the message was cut in half on its way to you — ask the pupil to send the whole of it again — or the answers are for a paper that is not on this device, in which case restore your backup or open the right paper first.
Your papers live only in this browser, on this device. Clearing your browsing data, or changing phone, would lose all of them.
To bring it back on a new device, open Settings and choose the file under Bring a backup back. Restoring adds — a paper already on the device is kept as it is, so bringing a file in can never quietly wipe an evening's work.
On the screen What goes at the top?, write the time in How long in figures (for example "1 hour 30 minutes" or "45 minutes") and tick ⏱ Enforce the time on pupils' phones. A pupil answering on a phone then sees a clock at the top of the screen, counting down from the moment they press Begin. When it reaches nought, their answers lock and are handed in by themselves, like an examiner collecting scripts. Closing and reopening the link does not restart the clock or lose their answers, and once handed in, the paper cannot be sat a second time on that phone. When you open their answers you see whether they finished early or were handed in by the clock.
Turn it on before you send the link — a link sent earlier has no clock. It cannot time a printed paper. And be aware of one honest limit: a pupil who opens the link on a second phone gets a fresh clock there.
Open a paper and press ⧉ Duplicate. A copy called "Copy of …" opens, with every question and mark of the original. Change, add or remove anything in it — ✎ Change the questions for the questions, ✎ Change the title, date and time for the top of the paper. The original is not touched, and the copy starts with no pupils' answers. Use it to set last term's test again, or the same quiz for another class. On the free trial a copy counts as one of the three papers.
Open it and press 🗑 Delete it. On a paper you have not finished, the button is at the bottom of the first screen, "Which subject?". There is no undo. The answers pupils sent back for that paper are deleted with it, because without the paper there is nothing to mark them against. If you want those marks in your mark book, put them there first. Marks already in the mark book stay there. A pupil who already has the link can still open the paper until the link runs out.
Settings can put a four-figure lock on the app, asked for when it opens. It stops a curious pupil picking up your phone and reading tomorrow's paper. Be honest with yourself about what it is: a lock on a door, not a safe.
▲ Back to the topIt is bought by the teacher, for the academic year — not by how many children are in the class. The free trial gives you three finished pieces of work, which is enough to set a drill, a quiz and an examination and see the whole thing through to the mark scheme.
Every paper you have made stays on the device, stays readable, and still prints — mark schemes and marked answer sheets too. What stops is making a new paper, until it is renewed. Your papers are your own work, and you will never be locked out of last term's examination to make you pay.
If your school paid for you, or you paid Wake directly, you will be given an activation code. Type it on the subscription screen. It needs the internet once, and then works offline.
▲ Back to the top| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| “That subject could not be fetched” | You need the internet the first time you use a subject. Try again where the signal is better; after that it works offline for ever. |
| A section came out shorter than you asked for | Go back to Topics and choose more of them, or ask for fewer questions. |
| A term has no meaning beside it | Write it yourself, or press Look again after choosing more topics. |
| A pupil's message will not go in | Ask them to send the whole message, including the long line at the end. |
| The paper prints with no lines to write on | Turn on “background graphics” in your printer settings — though the lines here are drawn so that they print even when it is off. |
| Everything has vanished | Browsing data was probably cleared. Restore your backup file in Settings. If you have never saved one, save one today. |
Anything else: wakelearningapps@gmail.com
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