Using Branched Questions in Torus

What are branched questions?

Branched questions allow you to create adaptive pathways within a multiple choice activity. Based on a student’s response to the questions within the activity, you can route them to a specific follow-up question. This enables you to:

  • Personalize learning paths
  • Diagnose misconceptions
  • Provide targeted practice or remediation
  • Reduce unnecessary questions for students who demonstrate understanding early

In many cases, this means that not all students will see or answer every question in the activity.

How scoring works (important)

By default, Torus calculates scores based on the total number of activities available on the page, not just the questions a student encounters through branching.

This can create a mismatch where:

  • A student completes their intended path
  • But does not receive full credit or a completion checkmark (✔)
  • Because they did not answer all possible questions

Recommended approach: Adjust completion criteria

To ensure students are evaluated fairly based on the questions they encounter and actually complete, you can adjust the page’s completion settings.

Step 1: Estimate the expected path length

Determine the minimum number of questions a student will answer when completing a valid branch.

Step 2: Set the completion percentage

In the page options in Torus authoring:

  • Adjust the completion percentage (Full Progress %) to reflect that minimum expected path
  • This allows students who complete a valid branch to meet the completion requirement

Important considerations

Because completion settings apply to the entire page, you’ll need to account for all activities on that page.

Be mindful that:

  • The completion threshold should not be achievable without engaging with the branched questions
  • The threshold should also not be achievable by completing only part of the branching activity while skipping other required components

Best practices

To get the most accurate and predictable behavior:

  • Keep branched question sets on their own page whenever possible
    • This simplifies completion logic and avoids conflicts with other activities
  • Design branches with similar lengths
    • Reduces variability in how many questions students answer
  • Test your branching paths
    • Walk through different answer combinations to confirm students can reach completion as expected

If you need more precise scoring control across complex activities, consider structuring content across multiple pages to better align scoring and completion behavior with your instructional intent.

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