Exam review Short: show the question, then reveal the answer with cues
A quiz-style study Short in two beats: the question for a few seconds, then the answer. Build it from a still and one Video captions job with timed cues.

An exam review Short that reveals the answer needs only three things: a background, a question cue that appears first, and an answer cue that appears later. In Sume, render a plain background still into a silent Timeline 1.0 clip, then run Video captions with two or three timed cues. The answer reveal is just a cue that starts after the question cue has had time to be read. Each captioned Short costs $0.20 for a video up to 60 seconds (Sume docs, read 2026-10-03).
Time the reveal for reading, not for effect
Viewers need time to read and think. A short question needs about as long on screen as it takes to read it aloud once, then a pause before the answer. Pick the pause yourself; Sume does not measure it. Cue times are seconds from the start.
| Cue | Start | End | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| Question | 0 | 7 | Which organelle makes most of a cell's ATP? |
| Answer | 7 | 12 | The mitochondrion |
| Follow-up | 12 | 15 | Where does glycolysis happen? |
Build it
Timeline 1.0 needs audio and at least one video[] slot. Use audio: { mode: "silence", duration_seconds: 15 } and one slot with your background image as source_url and duration: 15; stills are static holds. Then submit the output as video_url to POST /v1/video-captions with the cue list. Cues skip speech-to-text, which matters here because there is no speech.
``json
{
"video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/quiz-bg.mp4",
"cues": [
{ "text": "Which organelle makes most of a cell's ATP?", "start": 0, "end": 7 },
{ "text": "The mitochondrion", "start": 7, "end": 12 }
]
}
``
Check the facts
The cue text is whatever you send, so a wrong answer is burned in faithfully. Review each answer before publishing a set, and keep the background plain enough that the cue stays readable.
Sources
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