How do I create a Moodle calculated multiple choice question from a tex file?

If you look at the manual (texdoc moodle in your TeXLive installation, or on CTAN), there is no such thing implemented.

The available questions are just

• cloze
• matching
• essay
• short answer
• numerical (no variables)
• multi

This github project demonstrates how you can use python code within your LaTeX file to generate something that pretty much mimics the effect of calculated questions: you generate a pool of questions out of a prototype.

To push things a bit more, in a development version of the moodle package, I introduced support for moodle tags. This way, when building a quiz in Moodle, you can ask to pick up randomly a question among those that share a specific tag.

I also observed that with LuaTeX's internal scripting capabilities, you can do the same as what can be done using python.

Here is an example code:

% !TEX TS-program = lualatex
documentclass{article}
usepackage{moodle} % development version 0.8
begin{document}
begin{quiz}[tags={calculated}]{Example Quiz}
directlua{
function clozenum_print(pair,op,result)
  tex.print("begin{numerical}$"..pair[1].." "..op.." "..pair[2].." =$".."item ",result,"end{numerical}")
end
function cloze_print(pair,points)
  tex.print("begin{cloze}[points="..points.."]{Arithmetic Quiz ("..pair[1]..", "..pair[2]..")}Solve the following tasks!\")
  clozenum_print(pair,"+",pair[1]+pair[2])
  clozenum_print(pair,"-",pair[1]-pair[2])
  clozenum_print(pair,"*",pair[1]*pair[2])
  if pair[1]/pair[2]==math.floor(pair[1]/pair[2]) then
    clozenum_print(pair,":",math.floor(pair[1]/pair[2]))
  end
  tex.print("end{cloze}")
end
for x = 2,4 do
  for y = 2,4 do
    if x>y then
      if x/y==math.floor(x/y) then points=4 else points=3 end
      cloze_print({x,y},points)
    end
  end
end
}
end{quiz}
end{document}

the resulting PDF is rendered like this and the resulting XML file is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- This file was generated on 2020-11-10 by LuaLaTeX -->
<!-- running on Linux with the package moodle v0.8 -->

<quiz>
 
<question type="category">
  <category>
    <text>$course$/top/Example Quiz</text>
  </category>
</question>
 
<question type="cloze">
  <name format="html">
    <text><![CDATA[Arithmetic Quiz (3, 2)]]></text>
  </name>
  <questiontext format="html">
    <text><![CDATA[<p>Solve the following tasks!<BR/> (3 + 2 =){1:NUMERICAL:=5:0}(3 - 2 =){1:NUMERICAL:=1:0}</p>]]></text>
  </questiontext>
  <defaultgrade>3</defaultgrade>
  <generalfeedback format="html"><text/></generalfeedback>
  <penalty>0.10</penalty>
  <hidden>0</hidden>
  <tags>
    <tag><text><![CDATA[calculated]]></text></tag>
  </tags>
</question>
<question type="cloze">
  <name format="html">
    <text><![CDATA[Arithmetic Quiz (4, 2)]]></text>
  </name>
  <questiontext format="html">
    <text><![CDATA[<p>Solve the following tasks!<BR/> (4 + 2 =){1:NUMERICAL:=6:0}(4 - 2 =){1:NUMERICAL:=2:0}(4 : 2 =){1:NUMERICAL:=2:0}</p>]]></text>
  </questiontext>
  <defaultgrade>4</defaultgrade>
  <generalfeedback format="html"><text/></generalfeedback>
  <penalty>0.10</penalty>
  <hidden>0</hidden>
  <tags>
    <tag><text><![CDATA[calculated]]></text></tag>
  </tags>
</question>
<question type="cloze">
  <name format="html">
    <text><![CDATA[Arithmetic Quiz (4, 3)]]></text>
  </name>
  <questiontext format="html">
    <text><![CDATA[<p>Solve the following tasks!<BR/> (4 + 3 =){1:NUMERICAL:=7:0}(4 - 3 =){1:NUMERICAL:=1:0}</p>]]></text>
  </questiontext>
  <defaultgrade>3</defaultgrade>
  <generalfeedback format="html"><text/></generalfeedback>
  <penalty>0.10</penalty>
  <hidden>0</hidden>
  <tags>
    <tag><text><![CDATA[calculated]]></text></tag>
  </tags>
</question>
 
</quiz>

Once the questions are imported in the question bank of your Moodle course, you can add edit a quiz to populate it with questions taken randomly from the question bank