The Best Quiz and Game Show Apps for Classrooms

While quizzes might not be the most inventive way to learn, they're still useful for memorizing and recalling facts, assessing knowledge, or getting quick info at the end of a lecture or presentation. Because of their utility, there are tons of different apps, websites, and games out there for swiftly creating and delivering everything from quizzes and flash cards to polls and exit tickets. Some lean more into play, allowing teachers to host classroom game shows, while others shift more toward learning, facilitating formative assessments. No matter the focus, we've looked at all the tools out there for quizzing and selected our favorites below.

Our selections

These are the tools we feel best balance everything you'd want in a quizzing tool, while offering high-quality learning opportunities and polished experiences. They're split up into a few key categories that might be your best bet, depending on your needs.

Best Overall: Quizizz

Quizizz has grown thoughtfully over time to be our definitive top choice, whether you're running quick quiz games or looking to craft and launch deeper slide-based lessons with embedded assessments. Notably, it's got a decent-enough free version (with ads) that lets you run basic quizzes with exceptional question variety. However, the paid version (no ads) takes things to the next level with video and audio embeds, asynchronous learning, and answer explanations. This turns Quizizz into a lesson-delivery tool edging closely to platforms like Nearpod.

Read our review of Quizizz.

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Other recommendations

These tools also got high marks and are worth a look, depending on your needs.

Best for flashcards and test prep: Quizlet

Quizlet is a polished tool that pretty much does it all. The standout feature is its flash-card-based study tools. If you want to help students prep for tests, there's really nothing better. Students can use study sets that teachers assign, create their own, or use one from the content library powered by providers like Kaplan. These study sets have a mastery option that reinforces concepts as well as other neat customization options.

Read our review of Quizlet.

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Best choice for game shows: Kahoot!

Easily one of the more popular tools on this list, Kahoot! defined the quiz game genre. While Kahoot's suite of products has gotten increasingly bloated and confusing, the slick presentation of the quiz experience remains unmatched for K-12 classrooms. For now, it remains for us the go-to option for quick, fun quiz games. They've also added a post-quiz exit ticket that gets students reflecting on their learning and feelings.

Read our review of Kahoot.

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Best for formative assessment: Formative

If your focus is on substantive dialogue about learning, then Formative is worth a look. Compared to other tools on this list, it has less flash and dash, but a better feedback loop between students and teachers. We're particularly fond of Formative's live feedback feature, and the creative question types. It's also got the best privacy score of any tool on this list.

Read our review of Formative.

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Great for simple polls during presentations: Mentimeter

Mentimeter is a favorite among the staff at Common Sense. We use it regularly to run live polls during our presentations and lectures. It's super simple for both you and your audience to use, and can generate great visual aids like word clouds that can be used during, or even after, presentations. Best of all: You can probably get away with the free version.

Read our review of Mentimeter.

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Good option for device-free classrooms: Plickers

A lot of classrooms don't have enough devices to use other tools on this list effectively. Plickers solves this, using printed QR codes that students can raise in the air to answer questions. Teachers then use a device to capture student responses. Unfortunately, this low-tech solution means fewer customization options.

Read our review of Plickers.

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See everything we considered

The tools we call out here are a small slice of everything we looked at. If you prefer to do your own evaluation, find every tool we considered below.

These two Top Picks lists feature every tool we think passes muster.

• Apps and Websites for Making Flash Cards and Quizzes
• Top Tech Tools for Formative Assessment

You can also use our site's search to browse our full library of reviews.

• Go to search

Our criteria

To help organize our evaluation of quizzing tools, we looked at a few key features and functionality.

• Question and activity variety
• Options for homework or individual practice 
• Feedback and reporting
• Design and engagement
• Learning approach
• Customization options
• Content library
• Price
• Platform availability

Why trust us?: Our evaluation process

Our team of editors and reviewers (all current or former educators and/or researchers) painstakingly looked at dozens of quizzing, formative assessment, and polling apps for this article and narrowed down 11 of these for deeper evaluation and consideration. Each app goes through a rigorous evaluative process by both a reviewer and an editor. This involves hands-on testing (in some cases, this includes in classrooms or other real-world scenarios), rating according to our research-backed 14-point rubric, communication with developers and other educators, and finally a written review. We also consult our vast library of from-the-field reviews submitted by practicing educators. All told, each app undergoes at minimum four to six hours of testing and evaluation.

More information on our ratings and reviews.

Is there something we missed? You can request a product for review using this form.

Disclosure: Common Sense Education has published content on Kahoot!