The Art of Creating Hard Exam Questions and Answers
Examinations are a very common assessment and evaluation tool in universities and there are many types of exam questions. This tips canvass contains a brief description of vii types of exam questions, besides as tips for using each of them: i) multiple choice, 2) true/false, 3) matching, 4) short answer, five) essay, 6) oral, and 7) computational. Remember that some exams tin can be conducted finer in a secure online environs in a proctored figurer lab or assigned equally paper based or online "take home" exams.
Multiple selection
Multiple option questions are composed of one question (stem) with multiple possible answers (choices), including the correct answer and several wrong answers (distractors). Typically, students select the right answer by circumvoluted the associated number or alphabetic character, or filling in the associated circle on the machine-readable response sheet.
Example: Distractors are:
A) Elements of the exam layout that distract attention from the questions
B) Wrong but plausible choices used in multiple selection questions
C) Unnecessary clauses included in the stem of multiple choice questions
Answer: B
Students tin can more often than not respond to these type of questions quite quickly. As a result, they are often used to examination student'southward knowledge of a broad range of content. Creating these questions can be time consuming considering it is oftentimes hard to generate several plausible distractors. Notwithstanding, they tin exist marked very apace.
Tips for writing good multiple pick items:
| Avert | Do employ |
|---|---|
| In the stem:
In the choices:
| In the stem:
In the choices:
|
Suggestion: Subsequently each lecture during the term, jot down ii or three multiple pick questions based on the material for that lecture. Regularly taking a few minutes to compose questions, while the cloth is fresh in your listen, volition allow you to develop a question depository financial institution that you can use to construct tests and exams quickly and easily.
True/false
True/faux questions are simply composed of a statement. Students answer to the questions by indicating whether the statement is true or faux. For example: True/false questions have only two possible answers (Answer: True).
Like multiple choice questions, true/false questions:
- Are most often used to assess familiarity with form content and to check for popular misconceptions
- Allow students to respond quickly and so exams can employ a large number of them to test knowledge of a wide range of content
- Are like shooting fish in a barrel and quick to class simply time consuming to create
True/false questions provide students with a l% chance of guessing the right respond. For this reason, multiple choice questions are often used instead of true/false questions.
Tips for writing skilful true/simulated items:
| Avoid | Do apply |
|---|---|
|
|
Suggestion: Y'all can increase the usefulness of true/simulated questions by asking students to correct imitation statements.
Matching
Students reply to matching questions by pairing each of a fix of stems (e.g., definitions) with one of the choices provided on the test. These questions are often used to appraise recognition and recall then are well-nigh often used in courses where conquering of detailed knowledge is an important goal. They are by and large quick and easy to create and marking, just students crave more time to respond to these questions than a similar number of multiple choice or truthful/false items.
Example: Match each question type with one attribute:
- Multiple Choice a) But two possible answers
- True/False b) Equal number of stems and choices
- Matching c) Just ane correct reply but at to the lowest degree 3 choices
Tips for writing good matching items:
| Avoid | Do use |
|---|---|
|
|
Suggestion: Yous can utilise some choices more than than once in the same matching practice. Information technology reduces the effects of guessing.
Short answer
Brusque answer questions are typically composed of a brief prompt that demands a written answer that varies in length from 1 or two words to a few sentences. They are most often used to examination basic noesis of primal facts and terms. An example this kind of short answer question follows:
"What do you call an exam format in which students must uniquely associate a prepare of prompts with a set of options?" Respond: Matching questions
Alternatively, this could be written every bit a fill-in-the-blank brusque answer question:
"An exam question in which students must uniquely associate prompts and options is called a
___________ question." Answer: Matching.
Brusk answer questions can also be used to test higher thinking skills, including analysis or
evaluation. For instance:
"Will you include short respond questions on your next exam? Please justify your decision with
two to iii sentences explaining the factors that take influenced your decision."
Curt answer questions have many advantages. Many instructors report that they are relatively easy to construct and can be constructed faster than multiple selection questions. Dissimilar matching, true/imitation, and multiple choice questions, brusk answer questions make it difficult for students to
estimate the respond. Short reply questions provide students with more flexibility to explain their understanding and demonstrate creativity than they would have with multiple choice questions; this also means that scoring is relatively laborious and can exist quite subjective. Short reply
questions provide more than structure than essay questions and thus are oftentimes easy and faster to mark and oft test a broader range of the course content than full essay questions.
Tips for writing good short answer items:
| Type of question | Avoid | Do use |
|---|---|---|
| All short-answer |
|
|
| Fill-in-the-blank |
|
|
Suggestion: When using brusque answer questions to test student knowledge of definitions consider having a mix of questions, some that supply the term and require the students to provide the definition, and other questions that supply the definition and require that students provide the term. The latter sort of questions tin be structured as fill-in-the-blank questions. This mix of formats will better test educatee knowledge because it doesn't rely solely on recognition or recall of the term.
Essays
Essay questions provide a circuitous prompt that requires written responses, which tin vary in length from a couple of paragraphs to many pages. Like short respond questions, they provide students with an opportunity to explicate their understanding and demonstrate creativity, merely get in difficult for students to go far at an adequate reply past backbiting. They tin can be synthetic reasonably quickly and easily but marker these questions can be time-consuming and grader agreement tin be difficult.
Essay questions differ from short respond questions in that the essay questions are less structured. This openness allows students to demonstrate that they can integrate the course material in artistic ways. Equally a result, essays are a favoured approach to examination higher levels of noesis including analysis, synthesis and evaluation. However, the requirement that the students provide most of the structure increases the amount of work required to respond finer. Students often accept longer to etch a v paragraph essay than they would take to compose five one paragraph answers to short reply questions. This increased workload limits the number of essay questions that can exist posed on a single exam and thus can restrict the overall scope of an examination to a few topics or areas. To ensure that this doesn't cause students to panic or blank out, consider giving the option of answering one of two or more questions.
Tips for writing good essay items:
| Avoid | Do use |
|---|---|
|
|
Suggestions: Distribute possible essay questions before the exam and make your marking criteria slightly stricter. This gives all students an equal chance to set up and should amend the quality of the answers – and the quality of learning – without making the examination whatsoever easier.
Oral Exams
Oral examinations permit students to respond directly to the instructor'south questions and/or to nowadays prepared statements. These exams are especially popular in linguistic communication courses that demand 'speaking' but they can exist used to assess understanding in almost any course past post-obit the guidelines for the composition of brusque respond questions. Some of the principle advantages to oral exams are that they provide most immediate feedback and so allow the pupil to larn as they are tested. At that place are two main drawbacks to oral exams: the corporeality of time required and the trouble of record-keeping. Oral exams typically take at least 10 to 15 minutes per student, even for a midterm exam. Every bit a result, they are rarely used for big classes. Furthermore, dissimilar written exams, oral exams don't automatically generate a written record. To ensure that students have access to written feedback, it is recommended that instructors take notes during oral exams using a rubric and/or checklist and provide a photocopy of the notes to the students.
In many departments, oral exams are rare. Students may accept difficulty adapting to this new style of assessment. In this situation, consider making the oral exam optional. While it tin can take more than time to set up two tests, having both options allows students to choose the one which suits them and their learning style all-time.
Computational
Computational questions require that students perform calculations in club to solve for an answer. Computational questions can be used to assess student's retentiveness of solution techniques and their ability to apply those techniques to solve both questions they have attempted earlier and questions that stretch their abilities by requiring that they combine and apply solution techniques in novel means.
Effective computational questions should:
- Be solvable using knowledge of the central concepts and techniques from the class. Before the examination solve them yourself or get a education assistant to attempt the questions.
- Indicate the mark breakdown to reinforce the expectations developed in in-class examples for the corporeality of detail, etc. required for the solution.
To gear up students to exercise computational questions on exams, make sure to depict and model in class the correct format for the calculations and answer including:
- How students should report their assumptions and justify their choices
- The units and degree of precision expected in the answer
Suggestion: Have students split their reply sheets into 2 columns: calculations in one, and a list of assumptions, clarification of process and justification of choices in the other. This ensures that the marker can distinguish betwixt a uncomplicated mathematical mistake and a profound conceptual fault and give feedback accordingly.
References
- Cunningham, M.K. (1998). Assessment in the Classroom. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press.
- Ward, A.Westward., & Murray-Ward, K. (1999). Assessment in the Classroom. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.
This Creative Eatables license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work not-commercially, equally long as they credit usa and indicate if changes were made. Use this commendation format:Exam questions: types, characteristics and suggestions . Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo .
Source: https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/developing-assignments/exams/questions-types-characteristics-suggestions
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