assessment essay type questions

Example 2: Analytic style multiple choice question or short answer

Acknowledgement: Deakin University and original multiple choice questions: Jennifer Lindley, Monash University.

Setting word limits for discursive or essay-type responses

Try to set a  fair and reasonable word count  for long answer and essay questions. Some points to consider are:

• Weighting  – what is the relative weighting of the question in the assessment?
• Level of study  – what is the suggested word count for written assessments in your discipline, for that level of study?
• Skills development  – what skills are you requiring students to demonstrate? Higher level cognitive skills, such as evaluation and analysis, tend to require a lengthier word count in order to adequately respond to the assessment prompt.
• Referencing  – will you require students to  reference their sources ? This takes time, which should be accounted for in the total time to complete the assessment. References generally would not count towards the word count. Include clear marking guidelines for referencing in rubrics, including assessing skills such as critical thinking and evaluation of information.

Communicate your expectations around word count to students in your assessment instructions, including how you will deal with submissions that are outside the word count.

E.g.,  Write 600-800 words evaluating the key concepts of XYZ. Excess text over the word limit will not be marked.

Let students know how to check the word count in their submission:

• Show  word count in Inspera  – question type: Essay.

Multi-choice questions

Write MCQs that assess reasoning, rather than recall.

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Exam Questions: Types, Characteristics, and Suggestions

Examinations are a very common assessment and evaluation tool in universities and there are many types of examination questions. This tips sheet contains a brief description of seven types of examination questions, as well as tips for using each of them: 1) multiple choice, 2) true/false, 3) matching, 4) short answer, 5) essay, 6) oral, and 7) computational. Remember that some exams can be conducted effectively in a secure online environment in a proctored computer lab or assigned as paper based or online “take home” exams.

Multiple choice

Multiple choice questions are composed of one question (stem) with multiple possible answers (choices), including the correct answer and several incorrect answers (distractors). Typically, students select the correct answer by circling the associated number or letter, 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) Incorrect but plausible choices used in multiple choice questions C) Unnecessary clauses included in the stem of multiple choice questions Answer: B

Students can generally respond to these type of questions quite quickly. As a result, they are often used to test student’s knowledge of a broad range of content. Creating these questions can be time consuming because it is often difficult to generate several plausible distractors. However, they can be marked very quickly.

Tips for writing good multiple choice items:

Suggestion : After each lecture during the term, jot down two or three multiple choice questions based on the material for that lecture. Regularly taking a few minutes to compose questions, while the material is fresh in your mind, will allow you to develop a question bank that you can use to construct tests and exams quickly and easily.

True/false questions are only composed of a statement. Students respond to the questions by indicating whether the statement is true or false. 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 course content and to check for popular misconceptions
• Allow students to respond quickly so exams can use a large number of them to test knowledge of a broad range of content
• Are easy and quick to grade but time consuming to create

True/false questions provide students with a 50% chance of guessing the right answer. For this reason, multiple choice questions are often used instead of true/false questions.

Tips for writing good true/false items:

Suggestion : You can increase the usefulness of true/false questions by asking students to correct false statements.

Students respond to matching questions by pairing each of a set of stems (e.g., definitions) with one of the choices provided on the exam. These questions are often used to assess recognition and recall and so are most often used in courses where acquisition of detailed knowledge is an important goal. They are generally quick and easy to create and mark, but students require more time to respond to these questions than a similar number of multiple choice or true/false items.

Example: Match each question type with one attribute:

• Multiple Choice a) Only two possible answers
• True/False b) Equal number of stems and choices
• Matching c) Only one correct answer but at least three choices

Tips for writing good matching items:

Suggestion:  You can use some choices more than once in the same matching exercise. It reduces the effects of guessing.

Short answer

Short answer questions are typically composed of a brief prompt that demands a written answer that varies in length from one or two words to a few sentences. They are most often used to test basic knowledge of key 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 set of prompts with a set of options?” Answer: Matching questions

Alternatively, this could be written as a fill-in-the-blank short answer question:

“An exam question in which students must uniquely associate prompts and options is called a ___________ question.” Answer: Matching.

Short answer questions can also be used to test higher thinking skills, including analysis or evaluation. For example:

“Will you include short answer questions on your next exam? Please justify your decision with two to three sentences explaining the factors that have influenced your decision.”

Short answer questions have many advantages. Many instructors report that they are relatively easy to construct and can be constructed faster than multiple choice questions. Unlike matching, true/false, and multiple choice questions, short answer questions make it difficult for students to guess the answer. Short answer 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 be quite subjective. Short answer questions provide more structure than essay questions and thus are often easy and faster to mark and often test a broader range of the course content than full essay questions.

Tips for writing good short answer items:

Suggestion : When using short 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 can be structured as fill-in-the-blank questions. This mix of formats will better test student knowledge because it doesn’t rely solely on recognition or recall of the term.

Essay questions provide a complex prompt that requires written responses, which can vary in length from a couple of paragraphs to many pages. Like short answer questions, they provide students with an opportunity to explain their understanding and demonstrate creativity, but make it hard for students to arrive at an acceptable answer by bluffing. They can be constructed reasonably quickly and easily but marking these questions can be time-consuming and grader agreement can be difficult.

Essay questions differ from short answer questions in that the essay questions are less structured. This openness allows students to demonstrate that they can integrate the course material in creative ways. As a result, essays are a favoured approach to test higher levels of cognition including analysis, synthesis and evaluation. However, the requirement that the students provide most of the structure increases the amount of work required to respond effectively. Students often take longer to compose a five paragraph essay than they would take to compose five one paragraph answers to short answer questions. This increased workload limits the number of essay questions that can be posed on a single exam and thus can restrict the overall scope of an exam 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:

Suggestions : Distribute possible essay questions before the exam and make your marking criteria slightly stricter. This gives all students an equal chance to prepare and should improve the quality of the answers – and the quality of learning – without making the exam any easier.

Oral examinations allow students to respond directly to the instructor’s questions and/or to present prepared statements. These exams are especially popular in language courses that demand ‘speaking’ but they can be used to assess understanding in almost any course by following the guidelines for the composition of short answer questions. Some of the principle advantages to oral exams are that they provide nearly immediate feedback and so allow the student to learn as they are tested. There are two main drawbacks to oral exams: the amount of time required and the problem of record-keeping. Oral exams typically take at least ten to fifteen minutes per student, even for a midterm exam. As a result, they are rarely used for large classes. Furthermore, unlike 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 have difficulty adapting to this new style of assessment. In this situation, consider making the oral exam optional. While it can take more time to prepare two tests, having both options allows students to choose the one which suits them and their learning style best.

Computational

Computational questions require that students perform calculations in order to solve for an answer. Computational questions can be used to assess student’s memory of solution techniques and their ability to apply those techniques to solve both questions they have attempted before and questions that stretch their abilities by requiring that they combine and use solution techniques in novel ways.

Effective computational questions should:

• Be solvable using knowledge of the key concepts and techniques from the course. Before the exam solve them yourself or get a teaching assistant to attempt the questions.
• Indicate the mark breakdown to reinforce the expectations developed in in-class examples for the amount of detail, etc. required for the solution.

To prepare students to do computational questions on exams, make sure to describe 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 divide their answer sheets into two columns: calculations in one, and a list of assumptions, description of process and justification of choices in the other. This ensures that the marker can distinguish between a simple mathematical mistake and a profound conceptual error and give feedback accordingly.

If you would like support applying these tips to your own teaching, CTE staff members are here to help.  View the  CTE Support  page to find the most relevant staff member to contact.

• Cunningham, G.K. (1998). Assessment in the Classroom. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press.
• Ward, A.W., & Murray-Ward, M. (1999). Assessment in the Classroom. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.

This Creative Commons license  lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format:  Exam questions: types, characteristics and suggestions . Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo .

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Strategies and Tips Regarding Essay Questions on an Examination

What is an essay question.

When we think of an essay, we tend to think of a multiple-page written response to some question, prompt or scenario. However, essay-type questions can be brought into exam situations and can be quite beneficial in assessing student understanding. Regarding the definition of an essay question, one that has been helpful in deconstructing some of the core components of this type of questioning comes from John Stalnaker (1951). In his book, he defines an essay question to be

“ A test item which requires a response composed by the examinee, usually in the form of one or more sentences, of a nature that no single response or pattern of responses can be listed as correct, and the accuracy and quality of which can be judged subjectively only by one skilled or informed in the subject.”

Based on this definition, there are a few criteria that inform us on the characteristics of an essay question.

• Something in which the examinee (or student) has to compose or create, rather than select from a list of options
• It inherently includes some form of writing, usually in the form of multiple sentences
• Answers are not bound by a single response or pattern of responses
• It can only be evaluated or judged by someone informed or skilled in the subject

Maybe input an example of what an essay question might look like under these different criteria

Why are some advantages for essay type questions?

Essay questions bring a lot to the table when thinking about the purpose of your assessment tools. There are many different advantages to why we should use essay type questions on a midterm or a final exam. However, keep in mind that these advantages are context specific, and are presented to help you discern whether these will aid you in the assessment of your learning outcomes

• Essay questions can help assess higher-order thinking and critical thinking skills
• Essay questions can also assess in-the-moment writing skills
• Essay questions can evaluate student problem solving and reasoning skills

By understanding the advantages of an essay type question on a midterm, test or final exam, educators are then able to better assess whether these types of questions are useful for their purposes and learning objectives

What are some disadvantages towards essay type questions

• Can assess limited sample of the range of content.
• Can be difficult to grade and be administratively more costly to implement
• Can lead to bad writing habits, due to the lack of feedback and editing processes

Possible misconceptions regarding essay type questions

• Essay questions are always better than multiple choice questions when assessing higher order thinking

Just because you are providing students space to write more does not automatically mean that higher order thinking is being tested and evaluated. Poorly written essay questions can test rote memory, and can lend itself to a more factually-based answer. At the same time, well-crafted multiple choice questions can test higher order thinking (as described above). Therefore, it is important to be cautious when assuming essay questions automatically test higher order thinking.

• Essay questions eliminate guessing

There is a large concern when constructing question types that provide answers to students (such as multiple choice, true/false, or matching) where students can come to the correct answer based on luck or guessing. There is also an assumption that when students are writing an essay question, guessing has been eliminated, which is a misnomer. Essay questions can lend itself to a new form of guessing, or what researchers call “Bluffing” (Thelin & Scott, 1928). Bluffing is when students provide vague or generalized content in order to pad or add credibility to their writing. Many times, when grading large amounts of essay questions and when time is a factor in grading, it can seem that students who write a lot have a deeper understanding of content. However, succinct writing can be just as, if not more, effective in answer an essay prompt. Therefore, instructors need to be aware not only when constructing essay questions, but also during the grading of the potential of bluffing.

• Essays develop writing skills
• Essays encourage students to study and prepare more deeply

Strategies on how to construct effective essay questions

• Start with your own learning outcomes

As stated before, it is important to always think about the intentions and learning objectives of your assessment tool. Are you hoping to assess a baseline of knowledge, or is this a tool to be used to assess critical thinking and problem solving skills. Writing out explicit, clear and concise learning objectives will aid in how you create your essay questions. Understanding what you want your students to express will help you work backwards in creating your essay question.

• Limit subject matter (create boundaries)

Many times when students are given an essay question in an examination, it can feel extremely overwhelming. If we provide too vague of an essay question, students will feel the desire to write everything they know about the topic, many times to the detriment of actually answering the question. Therefore, providing clear boundaries and limitations (in your question and scenario) will help students focus their answer. Instead of having a need to write everything down, they will be able to formulate a clear response to your question if your question is clearly stated.

• Use verbs carefully and selectively (and make sure the verb interacts with the object of the verb)

Not all verbs are the same! Be mindful of what you want students to do. If you want students to provide an explanation, verbs like describe or explain might be useful. If you are hoping for students to provide their own interpretations with supportive evidence, verbs like analyze or evaluate.

• Situate the intended learning objective into a problem

This is similar to the previous idea of writing out your learning objective but takes it one step further. Since you have already written out your learning objective, use the same language for the essay question. If you are hoping for students to demonstrate their own opinions on a certain topic, feel free to use that language “demonstrating personal opinion” so students know what your intended learning outcomes are.

• Understanding limitations of writing in a time-based assessment

Essay questions are not essays. Essays go through a process of drafting, editing and revision. Essay questions on a test very rarely get edited, and generally do not start from a place of an outline or skeleton. Understand that your students are under considerable time pressure and many of them will start writing immediately even before drafting an outline. Therefore, be mindful of the time pressures of the writing and adjust your grading accordingly. Be clear as to your expectations on the quality of writing, the use of bullet points and short form, and other ways students can save time on the actual writing. Also be mindful of how many essay questions you can effectively put on an examination. Even if each question could be answered in 30 minutes, the more you add, the slower students will be to answer subsequent questions due to mental and physical fatigue.

• Promote feedback and training (to avoid poor writing habits)

One possible shortcoming of essay type questions is that they can promote bad writing habits. This is mainly due to the fact that students, very rarely, concern themselves with strong writing skills when completing an essay question on an examination. Therefore, it is up to the instructor to ensure that writing quality does not degrade during essay-type questions on a test. Integrating writing support during the course is not enough, for writing an essay or an assignment might be quite different than writing an essay question in a short period of time. Some strategies that might be helpful would be to encourage students to read the feedback on their essay questions. Furthermore, options can be provided for students to re-submit their essay questions (without knowing the answer key) after getting their marks back for a small, almost insignificant bonus in order to promote the editing and reflective process that is more evident in essay writing. Moreover, providing students with practice on how to effectively write essay questions, and even allocating grades to writing style and effectiveness on the actual essay question itself will help encourage students to not neglect one large aspect of these types of questions. One of the best ways to promote strong writing is to provide quality writing and have students deconstruct the piece of work. Giving the opportunities to be reflective and to try to take something as subjective as writing and create some objective guiding principles will aid in student writing development.

• Keep the writing of the essay as accessible as possible

One of the biggest fears of students is misunderstanding the question, which leads to providing an answer that does not represent their true understanding of the content. This becomes exaggerated with English language/Multi-language learners. When constructing your question, do your best to remove any unnecessary fillers and keep the prompt as succinct as possible. Very similarly to writing a good stem for multiple choice questions, any jargon or unnecessary information should be removed to reduce the amount of extraneous cognitive load and possible points of confusion.

• Be clear about the criteria of grading

Students should be aware of the criteria in which they are being graded. Now, unlike essays, many times students are not given the opportunity to review the grading rubric or criteria ahead of time. Therefore, it might be beneficial for students to know ahead of time how they might be graded (on general themes such as writing style, clarity, having a strong thesis statement, etc). Furthermore, on the actual essay question itself, it may be wise to provide a breakdown of what is expected and how the grades will be allocated. If you do provide a short breakdown of the grading scheme, keep it short and succinct as many students will just glance over it due to the time pressures of the test.

What about providing the questions ahead of time

Many educators believe that one way of dealing with the time crunch is to provide students with essay questions/topics ahead of time prior to the actual examination. Furthermore, some instructors will allow students to bring in “cheat sheets”, or work that has been written prior to aid them in the creation of their written answers. However, there are many pedagogical and administrative issues that come with providing questions ahead of time.

Administratively, instructors have to ask themselves, if they are providing questions ahead of time, why they have chosen to use these essay questions on an assessment tool like a midterm or test, rather than an essay assignment. Having more time, and the opportunities to edit, re-evaluate, and even resubmit a piece of writing will be more beneficial to students’ writing abilities than a one-off essay question on a test. Furthermore, providing students with more time to write the piece of work will generally lend itself to a higher caliber of work that reflects the students’ full capabilities. Therefore, educators need to ask how their learning objectives are better accomplished with this version of an essay question on a test rather than an essay assignment.

Pedagogically, it may seem beneficial to provide students with the essay questions ahead of time. Moreover, many instructors will provide a larger sample of essay questions, and only chose a subsection of them on the midterm. This may seem useful in helping students from just memorizing a script, while still assessing their mastery of the content and their critical thinking skills. However, the research has shown that by providing students with choices (specifically in the context of essay-type questions), assessments can become less valid and less robust in measuring the overall ability of your class. Some of these reasons include the fact that some of your essay questions might be easier than others, therefore students who chose to write a “harder” question may be at a slight disadvantage. Furthermore, students may waste time choosing a topic to write on (even if the questions are given ahead of time), which provides additional cognitive strain on the student that affects the sensitivity of your assessment tool. Lastly, if students are given the option on the actual test, the assessment may suffer in its reliability to capture the performance of your class. If students answer different questions, then it becomes difficult to assess if all students are equally knowledgeable about the topics covered on the test.

Essay Questions Writing Activity Sheet (PDF)

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22 Essay Question Words You Must Understand to Prepare a Well-Structured Essay

(Last updated: 3 June 2024)

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We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

Now, we may be experts in best essay writing , but we’re also the first to admit that tackling essay questions can be, well, a bit of a challenge. Essays first require copious amounts of background reading and research so you can include accurate facts in your writing. You then have to figure out how to present those facts in a convincing and systematic argument. No mean feat.

But the silver lining here is that presenting your argument doesn’t have to be stressful. This goes even if you’re a new student without much experience and ability. To write a coherent and well-structured essay , you just have to really understand the requirements of the question. And to understand the requirements of the question, you need to have a good hold on all the different question words. For example, 'justify', 'examine', and 'discuss', to name a few.

Lacking this understanding is a pitfall many students tumble into. But our guide on essay question words below should keep you firmly above on safe, essay-acing ground.

Definition of Question Words with Examples

No matter their nature, question words are key and must always be adhered to. And yet, many students often overlook them and therefore answer their essay questions incorrectly. You may be a font of all knowledge in your subject area, but if you misinterpret the question words in your essay title, your essay writing could be completely irrelevant and score poorly.

For example, if you are asked to compare the French and British upper houses of parliament, you won’t get many points by simply highlighting the differences between the two parliamentary systems.

So, what should you do? We advise you start by reading this guide – we’ve divided the question words either by ‘critical’ or ‘descriptive’ depending on their nature, which should help you identify the type of response your essay requires.

These are the question words we will cover in this blog:

Question Words that Require a Critical Approach

Once you have done this, it’s also important that you critically (more on this word later) examine each part. You need to use important debates and evidence to look in depth at the arguments for and against, as well as how the parts interconnect. What does the evidence suggest? Use it to adopt a stance in your essay, ensuring you don’t simply give a narration on the key debates in the literature. Make your position known and tie this to the literature.

2. Evaluate

It is essential to provide information on both sides of the debate using evidence from a wide range of academic sources. Then you must state your position basing your arguments on the evidence that informed you in arriving at your position.

Also, you may want to consider arguments that are contrary to your position before stating a conclusion to your arguments. This will help present a balanced argument and demonstrate wide knowledge of the literature. Here, a critical approach becomes crucial. You need to explain why other possible arguments are unsatisfactory as well as why your own particular argument is preferable.

4. Critically evaluate

The key to tackling these question words is providing ample evidence to support your claims. Ensure that your analysis is balanced by shedding light on, and presenting a critique of, alternative perspectives. It is also important that you present extensive evidence taken from a varying range of sources.

State your conclusion clearly and state the reasons for this conclusion, drawing on factors and evidence that informed your perspective. Also try to justify your position in order to present a convincing argument to the reader.

Put another way, ‘review’ questions entail offering your opinion on the validity of the essay question. For example, you may be asked to review the literature on electoral reform in Great Britain. You'll need to give an overview of the literature. and any major arguments or issues that arose from it. You then need to comment logically and analytically on this material. What do you agree or disagree with? What have other scholars said about the subject? Are there any views that contrast with yours? What evidence are you using to support your assessment? Don’t forget to state your position clearly.

Review answers should not be purely descriptive; they must demonstrate a high level of analytical skill. The aim is not simply to regurgitate the works of other scholars, but rather to critically analyse these works.

However, when assessing a particular argument or topic, it is important that your thoughts on its significance are made clear. This must be supported by evidence, and secondary sources in the literature are a great start. Essentially, you need to convince the reader about the strength of your argument, using research to back up your assessment of the topic is essential. Highlight any limitations to your argument and remember to mention any counterarguments to your position.

Give a detailed examination of the topic by including knowledge of the various perspectives put forward by other scholars in relation to it. What are your thoughts on the subject based on the general debates in the literature? Remember to clearly state your position based on all the evidence you present.

You should also try to provide some context on why the issues and facts that you have closely examined are important. Have these issues and facts been examined differently by other scholars? If so, make a note of this. How did they differ in their approach and what are the factors that account for these alternative approaches?

‘Examine’ questions are less exploratory and discursive than some other types of question. They focus instead on asking you to critically examine particular pieces of evidence or facts to inform your analysis.

9. To what extent

Such questions require that you display the extent of your knowledge on a given subject and that you also adopt an analytical style in stating your position. This means that you must consider both sides of the argument, by present contrasting pieces of evidence. But ultimately, you must show why a particular set of evidence, or piece of information, is more valid for supporting your answer.

Question Words that Require a Descriptive Response

It is important that you provide more than one meaning if there are several of them as it shows that you are very familiar with the literature.

2. Demonstrate

Make sure you assert your position with these types of questions. It's even more important that you support your arguments with valid evidence in order to establish a strong case.

3. Describe

‘Describe’ question words focus less on the basic meaning of something, therefore, and more on its particular characteristics. These characteristics should form the building blocks of your answer.

4. Elaborate

In addition, always remember to back any claims with academic research. In explanatory answers it is important that you demonstrate a clear understanding of a research topic or argument. This comes across most convincingly if you present a clear interpretation of the subject or argument to the reader. Keep in mind any ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions as this will help you to structure a clear and logically coherent response. Coherence is extremely important in providing explanatory answers.

A somewhat detached, dispassionate tone can be particularly effective, in contrast to the more assertive, argumentative tone you might adopt for other types of essay question. Just remember that the key objective here is to give a nuanced account of a research topic or argument by examining its composite parts.

7. Identify

8. illustrate, 10. summarise, 11. clarify.

Such questions require you to shed light on a topic or, in some instances, break down a complex subject into simple parts. Coherence is very important for acing such questions, remembering to present your answer in a systematic manner.

12. Compare

Furthermore, you may also want to emphasise any differences, although the focus of your essay should be on establishing similarities.

13. Contrast

How to strategically structure essay based on question words.

Understanding how to structure an essay based on question words is crucial for producing clear, focused, and compelling academic writing. The question words we analised above guide the direction of your response and dictate the type of content required. Recognising the demands of each question word allows you to strategically organise your essay, ensuring that your arguments are relevant and comprehensive. By mastering this approach, you can enhance the clarity and impact of your writing, making your academic work more persuasive and effective.

Here are a few more handy tips to bear in mind when addressing your essay questions:

When you first get your essay question, always try to understand exactly what the question means and what it is asking you to do. Look at the question word(s) and think about their meaning before you launch into planning what to write. Hopefully, our guide has shown you how to do this expertly.

Remember to read the question several times and consider any underlying assumptions behind the question. Highlight the key words and if possible, make a very basic draft outline of your response. This outline does not have to be detailed. But if you follow it as you write, it will help keep your response coherent and systematic.

Finally, remember to read through your essay at the end to check for any inconsistencies and grammatical or spelling errors. Or, if you're in search of the perfect finishing touch, have a professional apply an edit to your final essay. It always helps to have a second set of fresh eyes to assess your work for any errors or omissions.

How to write a first-class essay and ace your degree

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What makes effective test questions and answers for assessments?

What instructors and administrators need to know

Understanding the meaning and function of summative assessment helps clarify its role within education as a critical component of bridging teaching and learning. In this post, we take a closer look at summative assessment’s qualities with the end goal of ensuring that summative assessment supports learning and informs teaching.

Choosing a balance of assessment formats that enable feedback loops and learning insights is not a light task. Let's examine different forms of assessment to help teachers make thoughtful decisions when it comes to how we evaluate our students.

Dive into the differences between test validity and reliability and how they can affect student learning outcomes and a program's overall success.

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Thoughtful test questions and answers can help create an effective assessment, one that accurately measures student knowledge. When test questions are crafted with learning objectives in mind, they help foster study habits, influence knowledge retention, and prepare students for eventual summative assessments. Furthermore, when students feel an assessment is fair and relevant, they are less likely to engage in academic misconduct.

Assessment is the intersection at which instructors can provide feedback to guide students but also where instructors gain insights into student learning . In many cases, this feedback exchange can solidify student-teacher relationships and influence learning outcomes. With effective assessments, students can feel seen and supported. And instructors have the information they need to further learning. Thoughtful decisions about test questions and formats can make a difference in this data exchange.

There are many forms of test questions, each with their own strengths when it comes to upholding learning objectives. Some types of questions are efficient and measure breadth of student knowledge whereas other types of questions offer more opportunities to gain insights into higher order thinking.

Some of the most common question types and the roles of each in the realm of assessment are:

• Multiple-choice
• Extended matching sets
• Fill-in-the-blank
• Short answer
• Long answer / essay

To that end, this blog post will cover the above question types and then dive into methodology to bolster exam design.

What sets this question type apart?

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) have the ability to test a wide swath of knowledge in a short amount of time; this characteristic, plus the fact that MCQs enable faster grading and uphold objective scoring , make them a very popular standardized exam format.

That said, there are many critics of MCQs, some going so far as to say “multiple-choice tests are not catalysts for learning” and that “they incite the bad habit of teaching to tests” (Ramirez, 2013). Multiple research articles, too, indicate multiple-choice questions may result in surface-level study habits . However, they can still be leveraged for effective assessment when utilized appropriately. Multiple-choice questions can be paired with other question types to provide a complementary assessment or they can themselves be designed to test deeper conceptual understanding.

There are examples of how this question type can be useful in testing reading comprehension and practical knowledge of learned principles. In response to criticism surrounding the inclusion of multiple-choice questions on the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), The Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center at Touro College cites the “case file” format of a 1983 performance test in California , a multiple-choice exam paired with documents typical of a legal case file. Successful completion of this exam did not rely on rote memorization of rules. Rather, this exam used a series of multiple-choice questions to assess the application of relevant theories and practices to true-to-life scenarios presented in the mock case file.

Those considering the value of multiple-choice questions should also keep in mind any summative assessments that lie ahead for students, beyond the scope of a single course. In a recent webinar on the subject of multiple response type questions in nursing programs, Assistant Professor Cheryl Frutchey noted that many of her students at Oklahoma City University’s School of Nursing have been reporting that 70-75% of NCLEX questions are now the “select all that apply” format. In weighing the benefits of a particular question type in determining student success, field-related insights like these may help tip the scale.

A true/false question asks the exam-taker to judge a statement’s validity. Rather than calling upon powers of memorization, the exam-taker ideally demonstrates their command of verbal knowledge and a working knowledge of a given subject by converting abstract principles to a specific application .

That said, the nature of true/false questions makes it so that even when guessing, the test-taker has a fifty-percent chance of getting the correct answer.

The multiple-true-false question is an adaptation of the true-false question that incorporates (and improves upon) elements of the multiple-choice question type, requiring the test-taker to consider all answer options in relation to a given question stem. This hybrid question type differs from “select all that apply” in asking the test-taker to identify both correct and incorrect statements rather than just the “true” ones, shedding light on incorrect or incomplete understandings .

For both true/false and multiple-choice question types, opportunity for feedback is severely limited.

Particularly helpful for the usual format of clinical assessments in nursing exams, this item type provides a series of individual questions and a longer list of possible answers for the test-taker to choose from. By design, extended matching set questions prioritize an understanding of the question stems before a correct selection can be made, making it difficult to quickly eliminate incorrect answers from the list .

With an extended list of answers to accompany perhaps only a handful of question stems, this question type encourages the test-taker to process information within each question before parsing relevant answers from the provided list , emphasizing a deeper subject mastery than simple memorization can provide.

A known benefit of free response question types like fill-in-the-blank is the decreased possibility of guessing the correct answer. Since the exam-taker must provide an answer that fits contextually within the provided question stem, fill-in-the-blank questions are more likely to exercise language skills.

In a recent study composed of 134 final-year undergraduate dental students at the University of Peradeniya, 90% found fill-in-the-blank questions more challenging than the same question in multiple-choice format, and only 19% reported encountering fill-in-the-blank questions during their time in the program. By withholding answer choices that lead to quick answer recall, fill-in-the-blank questions can effectively gauge an exam-taker’s understanding. Though, as revealed above, the prevalence and/or feasibility of this item type may vary from program to program. And again, feedback is minimal with this type of question.

Short-answer questions are valuable for measuring a test-taker’s understanding of a subject beyond simple recall. Preparing for an assessment with this question type promotes study habits that reinforce comprehension over memorization , thus increasing the likelihood that the test-taker will retain this knowledge.

For example: After using ExamSoft to convert their assessment format from multiple-choice to short-answer questions, the Donald & Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell conducted a survey to measure student attitudes about the switch. Sixty-four percent of the 274 students surveyed thought that short-answer questions better equipped them for a clinical setting. By exercising abilities in critical thinking, reasoning, and communication, the free-response format of this question type allows the cultivation of skills necessary for the workplace.

Long answer or essay questions allow individual students to formulate their unique ideas and responses to demonstrate their understanding of a concept. This question is one that can most easily measure higher-order thinking and depth of knowledge, though at the same time, it may not cover a wide range of said knowledge.

Marking essay questions can be a time burden on instructors; additionally, long answers involve some measure of subjective scoring. They may also measure writing skills as well as subject-specific knowledge.

Beyond building assessments using all of these common question types, ExamSoft users can:

• Supplement individual questions with audio, video, or image attachments
• Create “hotspot” questions for exam-takers to select an area of an image as an answer
• Tag questions with categories, including learning objectives and accreditation criteria. Additionally, ExamSoft offers robust item analysis.
• Explore various question types offered by ExamSoft , such as bowtie, matrix, and drag-and-drop.

With Gradescope , instructors can:

• Accommodate a variety of question types with audio, video, or image attachments
• Utilize item analysis to measure exam design effectiveness, particularly for multiple-choice questions
• Grade question by question with answer groups and AI-assisted grading instead of student-by-student to promote more objective scoring
• Use Dynamic Rubrics to ensure students receive detailed insight into how points were awarded or deducted. Dynamic Rubrics also allow for flexibility to adjust grading criteria midstream to account for later accommodations for all students.

Examplify, ExamSoft’s test-taking application, offers several built-in exam tools for test-takers to use, including:

• Highlighter and notepad
• Programmable spreadsheet
• Scientific and graphing calculators

Gradescope accommodates a variety of assignment types and enables:

• Grading of paper-based exams, bubble sheets, and homework
• Programming assignments (graded automatically or manually)
• Creation of online assignments that students answer right on Gradescope

Assessment is a crucial part of education, no matter the subject or level. Assessments are tools to measure how much a student has learned, though with the right post-exam data, they can be so much more, including assessments themselves being a learning opportunity. But not all assessments are created equal ; a poorly written exam or exam item may skew results, giving instructors a false sense of student learning.

Effective exam items provide an accurate demonstration of what students know, and they also support fair and equitable testing. To get the most out of your assessments, it’s important to write well-constructed exam items with every student in mind and then test item efficacy.

There are two general categories of exam items: objective items and subjective items . Objective test items have a clear correct answer; item types can include multiple choice, true/false, short answer, and fill-in-the-blank items. Subjective items, on the other hand, may have a range of correct answers. Answers to subjective questions often involve persuasive/defensible arguments or present various options for in-depth discernment. Test items like these usually come in the form of long answers, essays, or performance-based evaluations.

According to the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University , “There is no single best type of exam question: the important thing is that the questions reflect your learning objectives.” It is the educator’s place to determine whether a subjective or objective test item will better align with their learning objectives.

If you want students to explain the symbolism in a literary text, subjective-based questions like short answers and essays are usually best. Objective test items are great if you want to make sure your students can recall facts or choose the best argument to support a thesis. If you want your students to match medical terms to their definitions? A matching task, which is an objective item, may be your best bet. No matter the subject, it is imperative to ensure the question types serve the intended learning objectives.

As you consider exam items, and whether you’re going to use objective or subjective items, it’s important to keep cognitive complexity in mind. Bloom’ s Taxonomy can help with planning not only curriculum but assessment . Bloom’s consists of six levels of cognitive understanding. From the lowest to highest order, these are:

As you move up the ladder from recall to creation, there is a gradual shift from objective to subjective exam items. If students are new to the concepts you’re teaching, it’s often best to focus on the initial three levels with objective items and set an appropriate knowledge foundation. As students progress through a course or program, you can start to assess the top three levels of cognition with subjective exam items to determine higher-order thinking or capability. While some courses may span testing student factual recall to synthesizing and creating their own ideas, many introductory classes may only pertain to parts of Bloom’s Taxonomy. More advanced courses, like graduate seminars, may target the higher order categories like analyze, evaluate, and create.

You might assess students’ grasp of the “remember” level with a multiple-choice question about the date of a significant period in history. Whereas testing students’ skills in “evaluation” may look like a persuasive essay prompting students to argue and support their stance on a topic with no one correct position such as interpretation of metaphors in written works.

As exam creators, we may sometimes write an item that is difficult for students to understand. After writing an item, ask yourself if the question or statement could be written more clearly. Are there double negatives? Have you used passive voice construction? Are you attempting to teach the concept in the question stem itself? Often, the more concise the item is, the better. If possible, do not use absolutes such as “never” and “always.” We’re writing questions, not riddles; it is best practice to test the students’ knowledge, not how well they read. The point is to focus on student knowledge acquisition and effectively convey the point of the question.

Avoid idioms and colloquialisms that may not be clear to international students. Questions containing regional references demonstrate bias. Also consider references that may exclude historically marginalized groups. For instance, an item that refers to a regional sport may not be as clear to these groups as a sport with international reach. Another example is the infamous critique of the SAT question referring to “regattas.” This term, which might be familiar to one certain socioeconomic group and completely unfamiliar to others, is simultaneously not a measure of aptitude.

Using psychometrics , specific and widely accepted statistical measures of exam data, you can test the reliability of your exam and items. One way to measure exam reliability through psychometrics is the item Difficulty Index, or p-value. Simply put, what percentage of exam-takers answered a specific question correctly?

If the p-value is low, the item may be too difficult. If the p-value is high, the item may be too easy. However, this data point alone is not a strong measure of reliability and should be used in context with other psychometric measures. If your difficult question has a high Discrimination Index and Point Biserial values, you can more confidently say that only the higher-order thinkers answered correctly, while the lower-performers did not. A high corresponding Point Biserial value also tells you that generally, students performing well on this item, albeit difficult, performed well on the overall exam. When psychometrics are used together, you are able to gain a solid holistic picture of item performance and whether your question was well written.

Psychometric analysis measures include:

• Difficulty (p-value)
• Discrimination Index
• Upper and Lower Difficulty Indexes
• Point Biserial Correlation Coefficient
• Kuder-Richardson Formula 20

The above strategies for writing and optimizing exam items is by no means exhaustive, but considering these as you create your exams will improve your questions immensely. By delivering assessments with a data-driven digital exam platform, instructors, exam creators, and programs can use the results of carefully created exams to improve learning outcomes, teaching strategies, retention rates, and more.

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Essay assessments ask students to demonstrate a point of view supported by evidence. They allow students to demonstrate what they've learned and build their writing skills.

An essay question prompts a written response, which may vary from a few paragraphs to a number of pages.

Essay questions are generally open-ended. They differ from short answer questions in that they:

• require more time
• are less structured
• require students to integrate information and interpretation.

When to use an essay

Essays can be used to test students' higher order thinking.

Advantages and limitations

• Limitations
• Test analysis, reasoning, synthesis and evaluation skills.
• Are open ended. This allows students to answer the question in a variety of ways and demonstrate depth and creativity.
• Allow for deep learning and connections.
• Allow students to draw on research and reasoning to provide justification and show integration.
• Opportunity to assess a student’s writing ability.
• Can be quicker to prepare than other item/assessment types.
• Can be structured in different ways.
• Can limit the range of assessable content and the number of assessment items that can be used.
• Favour students with good writing skills.
• not too open ended
• align with content and learning outcomes.
• Can allow for plagiarism.
• Can be difficult to moderate.
• Time consuming to assess.
• Markers need to identify knowledge and understanding, despite levels of expression, i.e. elegant language can mask superficial thinking, while clumsy language can disguise understanding of ideas.

Guidelines for developing essay assessments

Essay question.

Effective essay questions provide students with a focus (types of thinking and content) to use in their response.

Make sure your essay question:

• is aligned with the intended learning outcome
• is an appropriate length
• contains a clear task or a specific problem situation
• is worded and structured in such a way that it will be clear to the students what they are expected to do
• is not indeterminate, vague or open to numerous and/or subjective interpretations
• contains verbs that match the intended learning outcomes (if you use verbs like discuss or explain , indicate which points should be discussed/explained)
• defines the scope of the task to avoid students going off on an unrelated tangent
• allows for answers at different levels, i.e. a basic, satisfactory response and an extended, high level response
• includes differentiating aspects in the way the question is written.

Review the question and improve using the following questions:

• Does the question align with the learning outcome?
• Is the focus clear?
• Is the scope specific and clear enough?
• Is there enough direction to guide the student to the expected response?

Alignment to learning outcomes

To ensure the assessment item aligns with learning outcomes:

• prepare a model answer or an outline of major points that should be included in the answer
• critically review the essay item for clarity
• check the question is aligned with the intended learning outcome and model answer.

Student preparation

Make sure your students are prepared by:

• teaching them how to approach essays
• scaffold learning so there are opportunities to guide and practise essay writing
• ensuring students know the recommended time for completing their answer
• ensuring students know the weighting of the essay.

Examples of essay question verbs

In the table below you will find lists of verbs that are commonly used in essay questions. These words:

• relate to learning outcomes
• can be thought of as aligning with critical essay questions or descriptive essay questions
• can be used as starting points for the development of essay questions.

Learning Materials

• Business Studies
• Combined Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• English Literature
• Environmental Science
• Human Geography
• Macroeconomics
• Microeconomics

The Ultimate Essay Test Guide: Achieve Top Grades With Ease

An essay test, a fundamental tool in academic assessment, measures a student's ability to express, argue, and structure their thoughts on a given subject through written words. This test format delves deeper into a student's critical thinking and writing skills unlike other conventional exam types.

What is an Essay Test?

An essay test is a type of assessment in which a student is prompted to respond to a question or a series of questions by writing an essay.

This form of test isn’t merely about checking a student’s recall or memorization skills , but more about gauging their ability to comprehend a subject, synthesize information, and articulate their understanding effectively.

Types of Essay Tests

Essay tests can be broadly classified into two categories: Restricted Response and Extended Response .

• Restricted Response tests focus on limited aspects, requiring students to provide short, concise answers.
• Extended Response tests demand more comprehensive answers, allowing students to showcase their creativity and analytical skills.

Advantages and Limitations of an Essay Test

Essay tests offer numerous benefits but also have certain limitations. The advantages of an essay test are :

• They allow teachers to evaluate students’ abilities to organize, synthesize, and interpret information.
• They help in developing critical thinking and writing skills among students.
• They provide an opportunity for students to exhibit their knowledge and understanding of a subject in a broader context.

And the limitations of an essay test are :

• They are time-consuming to both take and grade.
• They are subject to scoring inconsistencies due to potential subjective bias.
• They may cause the students who struggle with written expression may face difficulties, and these tests may not accurately reflect the full spectrum of a student’s knowledge or understanding.

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Understanding the Structure of an Essay Test

Essay tests involve a defined structure to ensure organized, coherent, and comprehensive expression of thoughts. Adhering to a specific structure can enhance your ability to answer essay questions effectively .

The 7 Steps of an Essay

Writing an essay test typically involves seven steps :

• Understanding the question
• Brainstorming ideas
• Creating an outline
• Crafting a thesis statement
• Writing the essay body
• Formulating the conclusion
• Revising and editing for clarity and conciseness

The First Sentence in an Essay

The initial sentence of an essay, often termed a hook , plays a crucial role.

It aims to grab the reader’s attention and provoke interest in the essay topic. It should be engaging, and relevant, and set the tone for the rest of the essay .

The 5-Paragraph Essay Format

The 5-paragraph essay format is commonly used in essay tests, providing a clear and organized approach for students to articulate their ideas. In this format, the introduction and the conclusion include 1 paragraph while the body of the essay includes 3 .

• Introduction : The introduction sets the stage, providing a brief overview of the topic and presenting the thesis statement – the central argument or point.
• Body : The body of the essay contains three paragraphs, each presenting a separate point that supports the thesis statement. Detailed explanations, evidence, and examples are included here to substantiate the points.
• Conclusion : The conclusion reiterates the thesis statement and summarizes the main points. It provides a final perspective on the topic, drawing the essay to a close.

How to Prepare for an Essay Test?

Preparing for an essay test demands a structured approach to ensure thorough understanding and effective response. Here are some strategies to make this task more manageable:

#1 Familiarize Yourself with the Terminology Used

Knowledge of key terminologies is essential. Understand the meaning of directives such as “describe”, “compare”, “contrast”, or “analyze”. Each term guides you on what is expected in your essay and helps you to answer the question accurately.

To make it easier, you can take advantage of AI technologies. While preparing for your exam, use similar essay questions as prompts and see how AI understands and evaluates the questions. If you are unfamiliar with AI, you can check out The Best Chat GPT Prompts For Essay Writing .

#2 Review and Revise Past Essays

Take advantage of past essays or essay prompts to review and revise your writing . Analyze your strengths and areas for improvement, paying attention to grammar , structure , and clarity . This process helps you refine your writing skills and identify potential pitfalls to avoid in future tests.

#3 Practice Timed Writing

Simulate test conditions by practicing timed writing . Set a specific time limit for each essay question and strive to complete it within that timeframe. This exercise builds your ability to think and write quickly , improving your efficiency during the actual test.

#4 Utilize Mnemonic Techniques

To aid in memorization and recall of key concepts or arguments, employ mnemonic techniques . These memory aids, such as acronyms, visualization, or association techniques, can help you retain important information and retrieve it during the test. Practice using mnemonics to reinforce your understanding of critical points.

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Strategies to Pass an Essay Test

Passing an essay test goes beyond understanding the topic; it also requires strategic planning and execution . Below are key strategies that can enhance your performance in an essay test.

• Read the exam paper thoroughly before diving into writing : read the entire exam paper thoroughly. Understand each question’s requirement and make a mental note of the points to be included in each response. This step will help in ensuring that no aspect of the question is overlooked.
• Answer in the First Sentence and Use the Language of the Question : Begin your essay by clearly stating your answer in the first sentence. Use the language of the question to show you are directly addressing the task. This approach ensures that your main argument is understood right from the start.
• Structure Your Essay : Adopt a logical essay structure , typically comprising an introduction, body, and conclusion. This helps in organizing your thoughts, making your argument clearer, and enhancing the readability of your essay.
• Answer in Point Form When Running Out of Time : If time is running short, present your answer in point form. This approach allows you to cover more points quickly, ensuring you don’t leave any questions unanswered.
• Write as Legibly as Possible : Your writing should be clear and easy to read. Illegible handwriting could lead to misunderstandings and may negatively impact your grades.
• Number Your Answers : Ensure your answers are correctly numbered. This helps in aligning your responses with the respective questions, making it easier for the examiner to assess your work, and reducing chances of confusion or error
• Time Yourself on Each Question : Time management is crucial in an essay test. Allocate a specific amount of time to each question, taking into account the marks they carry. Ensure you leave ample time for revising and editing your responses. Practicing this strategy can prevent last-minute rushes and result in a more polished essay.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Essay Tests

How do you answer an essay question, when taking an essay test what is the first step, what type of test is an essay test, what is the first sentence in an essay, what are the six elements of an essay.

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Essay Exams

What this handout is about.

At some time in your undergraduate career, you’re going to have to write an essay exam. This thought can inspire a fair amount of fear: we struggle enough with essays when they aren’t timed events based on unknown questions. The goal of this handout is to give you some easy and effective strategies that will help you take control of the situation and do your best.

Why do instructors give essay exams?

Essay exams are a useful tool for finding out if you can sort through a large body of information, figure out what is important, and explain why it is important. Essay exams challenge you to come up with key course ideas and put them in your own words and to use the interpretive or analytical skills you’ve practiced in the course. Instructors want to see whether:

• You understand concepts that provide the basis for the course
• You can use those concepts to interpret specific materials
• You can make connections, see relationships, draw comparisons and contrasts
• You can synthesize diverse information in support of an original assertion
• You can justify your own evaluations based on appropriate criteria
• You can argue your own opinions with convincing evidence
• You can think critically and analytically about a subject

What essay questions require

Exam questions can reach pretty far into the course materials, so you cannot hope to do well on them if you do not keep up with the readings and assignments from the beginning of the course. The most successful essay exam takers are prepared for anything reasonable, and they probably have some intelligent guesses about the content of the exam before they take it. How can you be a prepared exam taker? Try some of the following suggestions during the semester:

• Do the reading as the syllabus dictates; keeping up with the reading while the related concepts are being discussed in class saves you double the effort later.
• Go to lectures (and put away your phone, the newspaper, and that crossword puzzle!).
• Take careful notes that you’ll understand months later. If this is not your strong suit or the conventions for a particular discipline are different from what you are used to, ask your TA or the Learning Center for advice.
• Participate in your discussion sections; this will help you absorb the material better so you don’t have to study as hard.
• Organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester. Others will catch things you might miss even when paying attention. This is not cheating. As long as what you write on the essay is your own work, formulating ideas and sharing notes is okay. In fact, it is a big part of the learning process.
• As an exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take. This will help you forecast the questions that will be on the exam, and prepare for them.

These suggestions will save you lots of time and misery later. Remember that you can’t cram weeks of information into a single day or night of study. So why put yourself in that position?

Now let’s focus on studying for the exam. You’ll notice the following suggestions are all based on organizing your study materials into manageable chunks of related material. If you have a plan of attack, you’ll feel more confident and your answers will be more clear. Here are some tips: 

• Don’t just memorize aimlessly; clarify the important issues of the course and use these issues to focus your understanding of specific facts and particular readings.
• Try to organize and prioritize the information into a thematic pattern. Look at what you’ve studied and find a way to put things into related groups. Find the fundamental ideas that have been emphasized throughout the course and organize your notes into broad categories. Think about how different categories relate to each other.
• Find out what you don’t know, but need to know, by making up test questions and trying to answer them. Studying in groups helps as well.

Taking the exam

Read the exam carefully.

• If you are given the entire exam at once and can determine your approach on your own, read the entire exam before you get started.
• Look at how many points each part earns you, and find hints for how long your answers should be.
• Figure out how much time you have and how best to use it. Write down the actual clock time that you expect to take in each section, and stick to it. This will help you avoid spending all your time on only one section. One strategy is to divide the available time according to percentage worth of the question. You don’t want to spend half of your time on something that is only worth one tenth of the total points.
• As you read, make tentative choices of the questions you will answer (if you have a choice). Don’t just answer the first essay question you encounter. Instead, read through all of the options. Jot down really brief ideas for each question before deciding.
• Remember that the easiest-looking question is not always as easy as it looks. Focus your attention on questions for which you can explain your answer most thoroughly, rather than settle on questions where you know the answer but can’t say why.

Analyze the questions

• Decide what you are being asked to do. If you skim the question to find the main “topic” and then rush to grasp any related ideas you can recall, you may become flustered, lose concentration, and even go blank. Try looking closely at what the question is directing you to do, and try to understand the sort of writing that will be required.
• Focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.
• Look at the active verbs in the assignment—they tell you what you should be doing. We’ve included some of these below, with some suggestions on what they might mean. (For help with this sort of detective work, see the Writing Center handout titled Reading Assignments.)

Information words, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject. Information words may include:

• define—give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning.
• explain why/how—give reasons why or examples of how something happened.
• illustrate—give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject.
• summarize—briefly cover the important ideas you learned about the subject.
• trace—outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form.
• research—gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you’ve found.

Relation words ask you to demonstrate how things are connected. Relation words may include:

• compare—show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different).
• contrast—show how two or more things are dissimilar.
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation.
• cause—show how one event or series of events made something else happen.
• relate—show or describe the connections between things.

Interpretation words ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Don’t see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation. Interpretation words may include:

• prove, justify—give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth.
• evaluate, respond, assess—state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons (you may want to compare your subject to something else).
• support—give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe).
• synthesize—put two or more things together that haven’t been put together before; don’t just summarize one and then the other, and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together (as opposed to compare and contrast—see above).
• analyze—look closely at the components of something to figure out how it works, what it might mean, or why it is important.
• argue—take a side and defend it (with proof) against the other side.

Plan your answers

Think about your time again. How much planning time you should take depends on how much time you have for each question and how many points each question is worth. Here are some general guidelines: 

• For short-answer definitions and identifications, just take a few seconds. Skip over any you don’t recognize fairly quickly, and come back to them when another question jogs your memory.
• For answers that require a paragraph or two, jot down several important ideas or specific examples that help to focus your thoughts.
• For longer answers, you will need to develop a much more definite strategy of organization. You only have time for one draft, so allow a reasonable amount of time—as much as a quarter of the time you’ve allotted for the question—for making notes, determining a thesis, and developing an outline.
• For questions with several parts (different requests or directions, a sequence of questions), make a list of the parts so that you do not miss or minimize one part. One way to be sure you answer them all is to number them in the question and in your outline.
• You may have to try two or three outlines or clusters before you hit on a workable plan. But be realistic—you want a plan you can develop within the limited time allotted for your answer. Your outline will have to be selective—not everything you know, but what you know that you can state clearly and keep to the point in the time available.

Again, focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.

Writing your answers

As with planning, your strategy for writing depends on the length of your answer:

• For short identifications and definitions, it is usually best to start with a general identifying statement and then move on to describe specific applications or explanations. Two sentences will almost always suffice, but make sure they are complete sentences. Find out whether the instructor wants definition alone, or definition and significance. Why is the identification term or object important?
• For longer answers, begin by stating your forecasting statement or thesis clearly and explicitly. Strive for focus, simplicity, and clarity. In stating your point and developing your answers, you may want to use important course vocabulary words from the question. For example, if the question is, “How does wisteria function as a representation of memory in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom?” you may want to use the words wisteria, representation, memory, and Faulkner) in your thesis statement and answer. Use these important words or concepts throughout the answer.
• If you have devised a promising outline for your answer, then you will be able to forecast your overall plan and its subpoints in your opening sentence. Forecasting impresses readers and has the very practical advantage of making your answer easier to read. Also, if you don’t finish writing, it tells your reader what you would have said if you had finished (and may get you partial points).
• You might want to use briefer paragraphs than you ordinarily do and signal clear relations between paragraphs with transition phrases or sentences.
• As you move ahead with the writing, you may think of new subpoints or ideas to include in the essay. Stop briefly to make a note of these on your original outline. If they are most appropriately inserted in a section you’ve already written, write them neatly in the margin, at the top of the page, or on the last page, with arrows or marks to alert the reader to where they fit in your answer. Be as neat and clear as possible.
• Don’t pad your answer with irrelevancies and repetitions just to fill up space. Within the time available, write a comprehensive, specific answer.
• Watch the clock carefully to ensure that you do not spend too much time on one answer. You must be realistic about the time constraints of an essay exam. If you write one dazzling answer on an exam with three equally-weighted required questions, you earn only 33 points—not enough to pass at most colleges. This may seem unfair, but keep in mind that instructors plan exams to be reasonably comprehensive. They want you to write about the course materials in two or three or more ways, not just one way. Hint: if you finish a half-hour essay in 10 minutes, you may need to develop some of your ideas more fully.
• If you run out of time when you are writing an answer, jot down the remaining main ideas from your outline, just to show that you know the material and with more time could have continued your exposition.
• Double-space to leave room for additions, and strike through errors or changes with one straight line (avoid erasing or scribbling over). Keep things as clean as possible. You never know what will earn you partial credit.
• Write legibly and proofread. Remember that your instructor will likely be reading a large pile of exams. The more difficult they are to read, the more exasperated the instructor might become. Your instructor also cannot give you credit for what they cannot understand. A few minutes of careful proofreading can improve your grade.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind in writing essay exams is that you have a limited amount of time and space in which to get across the knowledge you have acquired and your ability to use it. Essay exams are not the place to be subtle or vague. It’s okay to have an obvious structure, even the five-paragraph essay format you may have been taught in high school. Introduce your main idea, have several paragraphs of support—each with a single point defended by specific examples, and conclude with a restatement of your main point and its significance.

Some physiological tips

Just think—we expect athletes to practice constantly and use everything in their abilities and situations in order to achieve success. Yet, somehow many students are convinced that one day’s worth of studying, no sleep, and some well-placed compliments (“Gee, Dr. So-and-so, I really enjoyed your last lecture”) are good preparation for a test. Essay exams are like any other testing situation in life: you’ll do best if you are prepared for what is expected of you, have practiced doing it before, and have arrived in the best shape to do it. You may not want to believe this, but it’s true: a good night’s sleep and a relaxed mind and body can do as much or more for you as any last-minute cram session. Colleges abound with tales of woe about students who slept through exams because they stayed up all night, wrote an essay on the wrong topic, forgot everything they studied, or freaked out in the exam and hyperventilated. If you are rested, breathing normally, and have brought along some healthy, energy-boosting snacks that you can eat or drink quietly, you are in a much better position to do a good job on the test. You aren’t going to write a good essay on something you figured out at 4 a.m. that morning. If you prepare yourself well throughout the semester, you don’t risk your whole grade on an overloaded, undernourished brain.

If for some reason you get yourself into this situation, take a minute every once in a while during the test to breathe deeply, stretch, and clear your brain. You need to be especially aware of the likelihood of errors, so check your essays thoroughly before you hand them in to make sure they answer the right questions and don’t have big oversights or mistakes (like saying “Hitler” when you really mean “Churchill”).

If you tend to go blank during exams, try studying in the same classroom in which the test will be given. Some research suggests that people attach ideas to their surroundings, so it might jog your memory to see the same things you were looking at while you studied.

Try good luck charms. Bring in something you associate with success or the support of your loved ones, and use it as a psychological boost.

Take all of the time you’ve been allotted. Reread, rework, and rethink your answers if you have extra time at the end, rather than giving up and handing the exam in the minute you’ve written your last sentence. Use every advantage you are given.

Remember that instructors do not want to see you trip up—they want to see you do well. With this in mind, try to relax and just do the best you can. The more you panic, the more mistakes you are liable to make. Put the test in perspective: will you die from a poor performance? Will you lose all of your friends? Will your entire future be destroyed? Remember: it’s just a test.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Axelrod, Rise B., and Charles R. Cooper. 2016. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing , 11th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Fowler, Ramsay H., and Jane E. Aaron. 2016. The Little, Brown Handbook , 13th ed. Boston: Pearson.

Gefvert, Constance J. 1988. The Confident Writer: A Norton Handbook , 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Kirszner, Laurie G. 1988. Writing: A College Rhetoric , 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Woodman, Leonara, and Thomas P. Adler. 1988. The Writer’s Choices , 2nd ed. Northbrook, Illinois: Scott Foresman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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TOPICS A. Fill-in-the-Blank Items B. Essay Questions C. Scoring Options Assignments Essay questions are a more complex version of constructed response assessments. With essay questions, there is one general question or proposition, and the student is asked to respond in writing. This type of assessment is very powerful -- it allows the students to express themselves and demonstrate their reasoning related to a topic. Essay questions often demand the use of higher level thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Essay questions may appear to be easier to write than multiple choice and other question types, but writing effective essay questions requires a great deal of thought and planning. If an essay question is vague, it will be much more difficult for the students to answer and much more difficult for the instructor to score. Well-written essay questions have the following features: Essay questions are used both as formative assessments (in classrooms) and summative assessments (on standardized tests). There are 2 major categories of essay questions -- (also referred to as or ) and . Short response questions are more focused and constrained than extended response questions. For example, a short response might ask a student to "write an example," "list three reasons," or "compare and contrast two techniques." The short response items on the Florida assessment (FCAT) are designed to take about 5 minutes to complete and the student is allowed up to 8 lines for each answer. The short responses are scored using a 2-point scoring rubric. A complete and correct answer is worth 2 points. A partial answer is worth 1 point. How are the scrub jay and the mockingbird different? Support your answer with details and information from the article. Extended Response Extended responses can be much longer and complex then short responses, but students should be encouraged to remain focused and organized. On the FCAT, students have 14 lines for each answer to an extended response item, and they are advised to allow approximately 10-15 minutes to complete each item. The FCAT extended responses are scored using a 4-point scoring rubric. A complete and correct answer is worth 4 points. A partial answer is worth 1, 2, or 3 points. Robert is designing a demonstration to display at his school’s science fair. He will show how changing the position of a fulcrum on a lever changes the amount of force needed to lift an object. To do this, Robert will use a piece of wood for a lever and a block of wood to act as a fulcrum. He plans to move the fulcrum to different places on the lever to see how its placement affects the force needed to lift an object.   Identify at least two other actions that would make Robert’s demonstration better.   Explain why each action would improve the demonstration. | | | Constructed Response and the at . Calendar/Events Navigate: Students Navigate: Staff More Resources LEARN Center Research-Based Teaching Tips Short Answer & Essay Tests Strategies, Ideas, and Recommendations from the faculty Development Literature General Strategies Save essay questions for testing higher levels of thought (application, synthesis, and evaluation), not recall facts. Appropriate tasks for essays include: Comparing: Identify the similarities and differences between Relating cause and effect: What are the major causes of...? What would be the most likely effects of...? Justifying: Explain why you agree or disagree with the following statement. Generalizing: State a set of principles that can explain the following events. Inferring: How would character X react to the following? Creating: what would happen if...? Applying: Describe a situation that illustrates the principle of. Analyzing: Find and correct the reasoning errors in the following passage. Evaluating: Assess the strengths and weaknesses of. There are three drawbacks to giving students a choice. First, some students will waste time trying to decide which questions to answer. Second, you will not know whether all students are equally knowledgeable about all the topics covered on the test. Third, since some questions are likely to be harder than others, the test could be unfair. Tests that ask only one question are less valid and reliable than those with a wider sampling of test items. In a fifty-minute class period, you may be able to pose three essay questions or ten short answer questions. To reduce students' anxiety and help them see that you want them to do their best, give them pointers on how to take an essay exam. For example: Survey the entire test quickly, noting the directions and estimating the importance and difficulty of each question. If ideas or answers come to mind, jot them down quickly. Outline each answer before you begin to write. Jot down notes on important points, arrange them in a pattern, and add specific details under each point. Writing Effective Test Questions Avoid vague questions that could lead students to different interpretations. If you use the word "how" or "why" in an essay question, students will be better able to develop a clear thesis. As examples of essay and short-answer questions: Poor: What are three types of market organization? In what ways are they different from one another? Better: Define oligopoly. How does oligopoly differ from both perfect competition and monopoly in terms of number of firms, control over price, conditions of entry, cost structure, and long-term profitability? Poor: Name the principles that determined postwar American foreign policy. Better: Describe three principles on which American foreign policy was based between 1945 and 1960; illustrate each of the principles with two actions of the executive branch of government. If you want students to consider certain aspects or issues in developing their answers, set them out in separate paragraph. Leave the questions on a line by itself. Use your version to help you revise the question, as needed, and to estimate how much time students will need to complete the question. If you can answer the question in ten minutes, students will probably need twenty to thirty minutes. Use these estimates in determining the number of questions to ask on the exam. Give students advice on how much time to spend on each question. Decide which specific facts or ideas a student must mention to earn full credit and how you will award partial credit. Below is an example of a holistic scoring rubric used to evaluate essays: Full credit-six points: The essay clearly states a position, provides support for the position, and raises a counterargument or objection and refutes it. Five points: The essay states a position, supports it, and raises a counterargument or objection and refutes it. The essay contains one or more of the following ragged edges: evidence is not uniformly persuasive, counterargument is not a serious threat to the position, some ideas seem out of place. Four points: The essay states a position and raises a counterargument, but neither is well developed. The objection or counterargument may lean toward the trivial. The essay also seems disorganized. Three points: The essay states a position, provides evidence supporting the position, and is well organized. However, the essay does not address possible objections or counterarguments. Thus, even though the essay may be better organized than the essay given four points, it should not receive more than three points. Two points: The essay states a position and provides some support but does not do it very well. Evidence is scanty, trivial, or general. The essay achieves it length largely through repetition of ideas and inclusion of irrelevant information. One point: The essay does not state the student's position on the issue. Instead, it restates the position presented in the question and summarizes evidence discussed in class or in the reading. Try not to bias your grading by carrying over your perceptions about individual students. Some faculty ask students to put a number or pseudonym on the exam and to place that number / pseudonym on an index card that is turned in with the test, or have students write their names on the last page of the blue book or on the back of the test. Before you begin grading, you will want an overview of the general level of performance and the range of students' responses. Identify exams that are excellent, good, adequate, and poor. Use these papers to refresh your memory of the standards by which you are grading and to ensure fairness over the period of time you spend grading. Shuffle papers before scoring the next question to distribute your fatigue factor randomly. By randomly shuffling papers you also avoid ordering effects. Don't let handwriting, use of pen or pencil, format (for example, many lists), or other such factors influence your judgment about the intellectual quality of the response. Write brief notes on strengths and weaknesses to indicate what students have done well and where they need to improve. The process of writing comments also keeps your attention focused on the response. And your comments will refresh your memory if a student wants to talk to you about the exam. Focus on the organization and flow of the response, not on whether you agree or disagree with the students' ideas. Experiences faculty note, however, that students tend not to read their returned final exams, so you probably do not need to comment extensively on those. Most faculty tire after reading ten or so responses. Take short breaks to keep up your concentration. Also, try to set limits on how long to spend on each paper so that you maintain you energy level and do not get overwhelmed. However, research suggests that you read all responses to a single question in one sitting to avoid extraneous factors influencing your grading (for example, time of day, temperature, and so on). Wait two days or so and review a random set of exams without looking at the grades you assigned. Rereading helps you increase your reliability as a grader. If your two score differ, take the average. This protects students' privacy when you return or they pick up their tests. Returning Essay Exams A quick turnaround reinforces learning and capitalizes on students' interest in the results. Try to return tests within a week or so. Give students a copy of the scoring guide or grading criteria you used. Let students know what a good answer included and the most common errors the class made. If you wish, read an example of a good answer and contrast it with a poor answer you created. Give students information on the distribution of scores so they know where they stand. Some faculty break the class into small groups to discuss answers to the test. Unresolved questions are brought up to the class as a whole. Ask students to tell you what was particularly difficult or unexpected. Find out how they prepared for the exam and what they wish they had done differently. Pass along to next year's class tips on the specific skills and strategies this class found effective. Include a copy of the test with your annotations on ways to improve it, the mistakes students made in responding to various question, the distribution of students' performance, and comments that students made about the exam. If possible, keep copies of good and poor exams. The Strategies, Ideas and Recommendations Here Come Primarily From: Gross Davis, B. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993. McKeachie, W. J. Teaching Tips. (10th ed.) Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 2002. Walvoord, B. E. and Johnson Anderson, V. Effective Grading. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1998. And These Additional Sources... Brooks, P. Working in Subject A Courses. Berkeley: Subject A Program, University of California, 1990. Cashin, W. E. "Improving Essay Tests." Idea Paper, no. 17. Manhattan: Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development in Higher Education, Kansas State University, 1987. Erickson, B. L., and Strommer, D. W. Teaching College Freshmen. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991. Fuhrmann, B. S. and Grasha, A. F. A Practical Handbook for College Teachers. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983. Jacobs, L. C. and Chase, C. I. Developing and Using Tests Effectively: A Guide for Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992. Jedrey, C. M. "Grading and Evaluation." In M. M. gullette (ed.), The Art and Craft of Teaching. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. Lowman, J. Mastering the Techniques of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984. Ory, J. C. Improving Your Test Questions. Urbana: Office of Instructional Res., University of Illinois, 1985. Tollefson, S. K. Encouraging Student Writing. Berkeley: Office of Educational Development, University of California, 1988. Unruh, D. Test Scoring manual: Guide for Developing and Scoring Course Examinations. Los Angeles: Office of Instructional Development, University of California, 1988. Walvoord, B. E. Helping Students Write Well: A Guide for Teachers in All Disciplines. (2nded.) New York: Modern Language Association, 1986. We use cookies on this site. By continuing to browse without changing your browser settings to block or delete cookies you agree to the UW-Whitewater Privacy Notice . PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In EDIT Edit this Article EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Happiness Hub Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth Browse Articles Learn Something New Quizzes Hot Happiness Hub This Or That Game Train Your Brain Explore More Support wikiHow About wikiHow Log in / Sign up Education and Communications College University and Postgraduate Academic Writing How to Write a Good Answer to Exam Essay Questions Last Updated: July 9, 2024 Fact Checked This article was co-authored by Tristen Bonacci . Tristen Bonacci is a Licensed English Teacher with more than 20 years of experience. Tristen has taught in both the United States and overseas. She specializes in teaching in a secondary education environment and sharing wisdom with others, no matter the environment. Tristen holds a BA in English Literature from The University of Colorado and an MEd from The University of Phoenix. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 651,116 times. Answering essay questions on an exam can be difficult and stressful, which can make it hard to provide a good answer. However, you can improve your ability to answer essay questions by learning how to understand the questions, form an answer, and stay focused. Developing your ability to give excellent answers on essay exams will take time and effort, but you can learn some good essay question practices and start improving your answers. Understanding the Question Analyze: Explain the what, where, who, when, why, and how. Include pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, etc. Compare: Discuss the similarities and differences between two or more things. Don't forget to explain why the comparison is useful. Contrast: Discuss how two or more things are different or distinguish between them. Don't forget to explain why the contrast is useful. Define: State what something means, does, achieves, etc. Describe: List characteristics or traits of something. You may also need to summarize something, such as an essay prompt that asks "Describe the major events that led to the American Revolution." Discuss: This is more analytical. You usually begin by describing something and then present arguments for or against it. You may need to analyze the advantages or disadvantages of your subject. Evaluate: Offer the pros and cons, positives and negatives for a subject. You may be asked to evaluate a statement for logical support, or evaluate an argument for weaknesses. Explain: Explain why or how something happened, or justify your position on something. Prove: Usually reserved for more scientific or objective essays. You may be asked to include evidence and research to build a case for a specific position or set of hypotheses. Summarize: Usually, this means to list the major ideas or themes of a subject. It could also ask you to present the main ideas in order to then fully discuss them. Most essay questions will not ask for pure summary without anything else. Raise your hand and wait for your teacher to come over to you or approach your teacher’s desk to ask your question. This way you will be less likely to disrupt other test takers. Forming Your Response Take a moment to consider your organization before you start writing your answer. What information should come first, second, third, etc.? In many cases, the traditional 5-paragraph essay structure works well. Start with an introductory paragraph, use 3 paragraphs in the body of the article to explain different points, and finish with a concluding paragraph. It can also be really helpful to draft a quick outline of your essay before you start writing. You may want to make a list of facts and figures that you want to include in your essay answer. That way you can refer to this list as you write your answer. It's best to write down all the important key topics or ideas before you get started composing your answer. That way, you can check back to make sure you haven't missed anything. For example, imagine that your essay question asks: "Should the FIFA World Cup be awarded to countries with human rights violations? Explain and support your answer." You might restate this as "Countries with human rights violations should not be awarded the FIFA World Cup because this rewards a nation's poor treatment of its citizens." This will be the thesis that you support with examples and explanation. For example, whether you argue that the FIFA World Cup should or should not be awarded to countries with human rights violations, you will want to address the opposing side's argument. However, it needs to be clear where your essay stands about the matter. Often, essay questions end up saying things along the lines of "There are many similarities and differences between X and Y." This does not offer a clear position and can result in a bad grade. If you are required to write your answer by hand, then take care to make your writing legible and neat. Some professors may deduct points if they cannot read what you have written. Staying Calm and Focused If you get to a point during the exam where you feel too anxious to focus, put down your pencil (or take your hands off of the keyboard), close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Stretch your arms and imagine that you are somewhere pleasant for a few moments. When you have completed this brief exercise, open up your eyes and resume the exam. For example, if the exam period is one hour long and you have to answer three questions in that time frame, then you should plan to spend no more than 20 minutes on each question. Look at the weight of the questions, if applicable. For example, if there are five 10-point short-answers and a 50-point essay, plan to spend more time on the essay because it is worth significantly more. Don't get stuck spending so much time on the short-answers that you don't have time to develop a complex essay. This strategy is even more important if the exam has multiple essay questions. If you take too much time on the first question, then you may not have enough time to answer the other questions on the exam. If you feel like you are straying away from the question, reread the question and review any notes that you made to help guide you. After you get refocused, then continue writing your answer. Try to allow yourself enough time to go back and tighten up connections between your points. A few well-placed transitions can really bump up your grade. Community Q&A If you are worried about running out of time, put your watch in front of you where you can see it. Just try not to focus on it too much. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0 If you need more practice, make up your own questions or even look at some practice questions online! Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0 Tips from our Readers Look up relevant quotes if your exam is open notes. Use references from books or class to back up your answers. Make sure your sentences flow together and that you don't repeat the same thing twice! You Might Also Like ↑ https://www.linnbenton.edu/student-services/library-tutoring-testing/learning-center/academic-coaching/documents/Strategies%20For%20Answering%20Essay%20Questions.pdf ↑ https://success.uark.edu/get-help/student-resources/short-answer-essays.php About This Article To write a good answer to an exam essay question, read the question carefully to find what it's asking, and follow the instructions for the essay closely. Begin your essay by rephrasing the question into a statement with your answer in the statement. Include supplemental facts and figures if necessary, or do textual analysis from a provided piece to support your argument. Make sure your writing is clear and to the point, and don't include extra information unless it supports your argument. For tips from our academic reviewer on understanding essay questions and dealing with testing nerves, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No Send fan mail to authors Reader Success Stories May 29, 2017 Did this article help you? Sundari Nandyala Aug 5, 2016 Kristine A. Oct 1, 2016 Mar 24, 2017 Featured Articles Trending Articles Watch Articles Terms of Use Privacy Policy Do Not Sell or Share My Info Not Selling Info Don’t miss out! Sign up for wikiHow’s newsletter Creating and Scoring Essay Tests FatCamera / Getty Images Tips & Strategies An Introduction to Teaching Policies & Discipline Community Involvement School Administration Technology in the Classroom Teaching Adult Learners Issues In Education Teaching Resources Becoming A Teacher Assessments & Tests Elementary Education Secondary Education Special Education Homeschooling M.Ed., Curriculum and Instruction, University of Florida B.A., History, University of Florida Essay tests are useful for teachers when they want students to select, organize, analyze, synthesize, and/or evaluate information. In other words, they rely on the upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy . There are two types of essay questions: restricted and extended response. Restricted Response - These essay questions limit what the student will discuss in the essay based on the wording of the question. For example, "State the main differences between John Adams' and Thomas Jefferson's beliefs about federalism," is a restricted response. What the student is to write about has been expressed to them within the question. Extended Response - These allow students to select what they wish to include in order to answer the question. For example, "In Of Mice and Men , was George's killing of Lennie justified? Explain your answer." The student is given the overall topic, but they are free to use their own judgment and integrate outside information to help support their opinion. Student Skills Required for Essay Tests Before expecting students to perform well on either type of essay question, we must make sure that they have the required skills to excel. Following are four skills that students should have learned and practiced before taking essay exams: The ability to select appropriate material from the information learned in order to best answer the question. The ability to organize that material in an effective manner. The ability to show how ideas relate and interact in a specific context. The ability to write effectively in both sentences and paragraphs. Constructing an Effective Essay Question Following are a few tips to help in the construction of effective essay questions: Begin with the lesson objectives in mind. Make sure to know what you wish the student to show by answering the essay question. Decide if your goal requires a restricted or extended response. In general, if you wish to see if the student can synthesize and organize the information that they learned, then restricted response is the way to go. However, if you wish them to judge or evaluate something using the information taught during class, then you will want to use the extended response. If you are including more than one essay, be cognizant of time constraints. You do not want to punish students because they ran out of time on the test. Write the question in a novel or interesting manner to help motivate the student. State the number of points that the essay is worth. You can also provide them with a time guideline to help them as they work through the exam. If your essay item is part of a larger objective test, make sure that it is the last item on the exam. Scoring the Essay Item One of the downfalls of essay tests is that they lack in reliability. Even when teachers grade essays with a well-constructed rubric, subjective decisions are made. Therefore, it is important to try and be as reliable as possible when scoring your essay items. Here are a few tips to help improve reliability in grading: Determine whether you will use a holistic or analytic scoring system before you write your rubric . With the holistic grading system, you evaluate the answer as a whole, rating papers against each other. With the analytic system, you list specific pieces of information and award points for their inclusion. Prepare the essay rubric in advance. Determine what you are looking for and how many points you will be assigning for each aspect of the question. Avoid looking at names. Some teachers have students put numbers on their essays to try and help with this. Score one item at a time. This helps ensure that you use the same thinking and standards for all students. Avoid interruptions when scoring a specific question. Again, consistency will be increased if you grade the same item on all the papers in one sitting. If an important decision like an award or scholarship is based on the score for the essay, obtain two or more independent readers. Beware of negative influences that can affect essay scoring. These include handwriting and writing style bias, the length of the response, and the inclusion of irrelevant material. Review papers that are on the borderline a second time before assigning a final grade. How to Study Using the Basketball Review Game Creating Effective Fill-in-the-Blank Questions Teacher Housekeeping Tasks 4 Tips for Effective Classroom Management Dealing With Trips to the Bathroom During Class Tips to Cut Writing Assignment Grading Time Collecting Homework in the Classroom Why Students Cheat and How to Stop Them Planning Classroom Instruction Using Cloze Tests to Determine Reading Comprehension 10 Strategies to Boost Reading Comprehension Taking Daily Attendance How Scaffolding Instruction Can Improve Comprehension Field Trips: Pros and Cons Assignment Biography: Student Criteria and Rubric for Writing 3 Poetry Activities for Middle School Students Have a language expert improve your writing Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free. Knowledge Base How to structure an essay: Templates and tips How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates Published on September 18, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023. The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction , a body , and a conclusion . But for many students, the most difficult part of structuring an essay is deciding how to organize information within the body. Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes Table of contents The basics of essay structure, chronological structure, compare-and-contrast structure, problems-methods-solutions structure, signposting to clarify your structure, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about essay structure. There are two main things to keep in mind when working on your essay structure: making sure to include the right information in each part, and deciding how you’ll organize the information within the body. Parts of an essay The three parts that make up all essays are described in the table below. Part Content Order of information You’ll also have to consider how to present information within the body. There are a few general principles that can guide you here. The first is that your argument should move from the simplest claim to the most complex . The body of a good argumentative essay often begins with simple and widely accepted claims, and then moves towards more complex and contentious ones. For example, you might begin by describing a generally accepted philosophical concept, and then apply it to a new topic. The grounding in the general concept will allow the reader to understand your unique application of it. The second principle is that background information should appear towards the beginning of your essay . General background is presented in the introduction. If you have additional background to present, this information will usually come at the start of the body. The third principle is that everything in your essay should be relevant to the thesis . Ask yourself whether each piece of information advances your argument or provides necessary background. And make sure that the text clearly expresses each piece of information’s relevance. The sections below present several organizational templates for essays: the chronological approach, the compare-and-contrast approach, and the problems-methods-solutions approach. Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check. The chronological approach (sometimes called the cause-and-effect approach) is probably the simplest way to structure an essay. It just means discussing events in the order in which they occurred, discussing how they are related (i.e. the cause and effect involved) as you go. A chronological approach can be useful when your essay is about a series of events. Don’t rule out other approaches, though—even when the chronological approach is the obvious one, you might be able to bring out more with a different structure. Explore the tabs below to see a general template and a specific example outline from an essay on the invention of the printing press. Thesis statement Discussion of event/period Consequences Importance of topic Strong closing statement Claim that the printing press marks the end of the Middle Ages Background on the low levels of literacy before the printing press Thesis statement: The invention of the printing press increased circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation High levels of illiteracy in medieval Europe Literacy and thus knowledge and education were mainly the domain of religious and political elites Consequence: this discouraged political and religious change Invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg Implications of the new technology for book production Consequence: Rapid spread of the technology and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible Trend for translating the Bible into vernacular languages during the years following the printing press’s invention Luther’s own translation of the Bible during the Reformation Consequence: The large-scale effects the Reformation would have on religion and politics Summarize the history described Stress the significance of the printing press to the events of this period Essays with two or more main subjects are often structured around comparing and contrasting . For example, a literary analysis essay might compare two different texts, and an argumentative essay might compare the strengths of different arguments. There are two main ways of structuring a compare-and-contrast essay: the alternating method, and the block method. Alternating In the alternating method, each paragraph compares your subjects in terms of a specific point of comparison. These points of comparison are therefore what defines each paragraph. The tabs below show a general template for this structure, and a specific example for an essay comparing and contrasting distance learning with traditional classroom learning. Synthesis of arguments Topical relevance of distance learning in lockdown Increasing prevalence of distance learning over the last decade Thesis statement: While distance learning has certain advantages, it introduces multiple new accessibility issues that must be addressed for it to be as effective as classroom learning Classroom learning: Ease of identifying difficulties and privately discussing them Distance learning: Difficulty of noticing and unobtrusively helping Classroom learning: Difficulties accessing the classroom (disability, distance travelled from home) Distance learning: Difficulties with online work (lack of tech literacy, unreliable connection, distractions) Classroom learning: Tends to encourage personal engagement among students and with teacher, more relaxed social environment Distance learning: Greater ability to reach out to teacher privately Sum up, emphasize that distance learning introduces more difficulties than it solves Stress the importance of addressing issues with distance learning as it becomes increasingly common Distance learning may prove to be the future, but it still has a long way to go In the block method, each subject is covered all in one go, potentially across multiple paragraphs. For example, you might write two paragraphs about your first subject and then two about your second subject, making comparisons back to the first. The tabs again show a general template, followed by another essay on distance learning, this time with the body structured in blocks. Point 1 (compare) Point 2 (compare) Point 3 (compare) Point 4 (compare) Advantages: Flexibility, accessibility Disadvantages: Discomfort, challenges for those with poor internet or tech literacy Advantages: Potential for teacher to discuss issues with a student in a separate private call Disadvantages: Difficulty of identifying struggling students and aiding them unobtrusively, lack of personal interaction among students Advantages: More accessible to those with low tech literacy, equality of all sharing one learning environment Disadvantages: Students must live close enough to attend, commutes may vary, classrooms not always accessible for disabled students Advantages: Ease of picking up on signs a student is struggling, more personal interaction among students Disadvantages: May be harder for students to approach teacher privately in person to raise issues An essay that concerns a specific problem (practical or theoretical) may be structured according to the problems-methods-solutions approach. This is just what it sounds like: You define the problem, characterize a method or theory that may solve it, and finally analyze the problem, using this method or theory to arrive at a solution. If the problem is theoretical, the solution might be the analysis you present in the essay itself; otherwise, you might just present a proposed solution. The tabs below show a template for this structure and an example outline for an essay about the problem of fake news. Introduce the problem Provide background Describe your approach to solving it Define the problem precisely Describe why it’s important Indicate previous approaches to the problem Present your new approach, and why it’s better Apply the new method or theory to the problem Indicate the solution you arrive at by doing so Assess (potential or actual) effectiveness of solution Describe the implications Problem: The growth of “fake news” online Prevalence of polarized/conspiracy-focused news sources online Thesis statement: Rather than attempting to stamp out online fake news through social media moderation, an effective approach to combating it must work with educational institutions to improve media literacy Definition: Deliberate disinformation designed to spread virally online Popularization of the term, growth of the phenomenon Previous approaches: Labeling and moderation on social media platforms Critique: This approach feeds conspiracies; the real solution is to improve media literacy so users can better identify fake news Greater emphasis should be placed on media literacy education in schools This allows people to assess news sources independently, rather than just being told which ones to trust This is a long-term solution but could be highly effective It would require significant organization and investment, but would equip people to judge news sources more effectively Rather than trying to contain the spread of fake news, we must teach the next generation not to fall for it Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services Discover proofreading & editing Signposting means guiding the reader through your essay with language that describes or hints at the structure of what follows.  It can help you clarify your structure for yourself as well as helping your reader follow your ideas. The essay overview In longer essays whose body is split into multiple named sections, the introduction often ends with an overview of the rest of the essay. This gives a brief description of the main idea or argument of each section. The overview allows the reader to immediately understand what will be covered in the essay and in what order. Though it describes what  comes later in the text, it is generally written in the present tense . The following example is from a literary analysis essay on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . Transitions Transition words and phrases are used throughout all good essays to link together different ideas. They help guide the reader through your text, and an essay that uses them effectively will be much easier to follow. Various different relationships can be expressed by transition words, as shown in this example. Because Hitler failed to respond to the British ultimatum, France and the UK declared war on Germany. Although it was an outcome the Allies had hoped to avoid, they were prepared to back up their ultimatum in order to combat the existential threat posed by the Third Reich. Transition sentences may be included to transition between different paragraphs or sections of an essay. A good transition sentence moves the reader on to the next topic while indicating how it relates to the previous one. … Distance learning, then, seems to improve accessibility in some ways while representing a step backwards in others. However , considering the issue of personal interaction among students presents a different picture. If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools! Ad hominem fallacy Post hoc fallacy Appeal to authority fallacy False cause fallacy Sunk cost fallacy College essays Choosing Essay Topic Write a College Essay Write a Diversity Essay College Essay Format & Structure Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay  (AI) Tools Grammar Checker Paraphrasing Tool Text Summarizer AI Detector Plagiarism Checker Citation Generator The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas. The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas. An essay isn’t just a loose collection of facts and ideas. Instead, it should be centered on an overarching argument (summarized in your thesis statement ) that every part of the essay relates to. The way you structure your essay is crucial to presenting your argument coherently. A well-structured essay helps your reader follow the logic of your ideas and understand your overall point. Comparisons in essays are generally structured in one of two ways: The alternating method, where you compare your subjects side by side according to one specific aspect at a time. The block method, where you cover each subject separately in its entirety. It’s also possible to combine both methods, for example by writing a full paragraph on each of your topics and then a final paragraph contrasting the two according to a specific metric. You should try to follow your outline as you write your essay . However, if your ideas change or it becomes clear that your structure could be better, it’s okay to depart from your essay outline . Just make sure you know why you’re doing so. Cite this Scribbr article If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator. Caulfield, J. (2023, July 23). How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved September 3, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/essay-structure/ Is this article helpful? Jack Caulfield Other students also liked, comparing and contrasting in an essay | tips & examples, how to write the body of an essay | drafting & redrafting, transition sentences | tips & examples for clear writing, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..". I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes” Faculty & Staff Constructing tests Whether you use low-stakes assessments, such as practice quizzes, or high-stakes assessments, such as midterms and finals, the careful design of your tests and quizzes can provide you with better information on what and how much students have learned, as well as whether they are able to apply what they have learned. On this page, you can explore strategies for: Designing your test or quiz Creating multiple choice questions Creating essay and short answer questions Helping students succeed on your test/quiz Promoting academic integrity Assessing your assessment Designing your test or quiz Tests and quizzes can help instructors work toward a number of different goals. For example, a frequent cadence of quizzes can help motivate students, give you insight into students’ progress, and identify aspects of the course you might need to adjust. Understanding what you want to accomplish with the test or quiz will help guide your  decisionmaking about things like length, format, level of detail expected from students, and the time frame for providing feedback to the students. Regardless of what type of test or quiz you develop, it is good to: Align your test/quiz with your course learning outcomes and objectives. For example, if your course goals focus primarily on building students’ synthesis skills, make sure your test or quiz asks students to demonstrate their ability to connect concepts. Design questions that allow students to demonstrate their level of learning. To determine which concepts you might need to reinforce, create questions that give you insight into a student’s level of competency. For example, if you want students to understand a 4-step process, develop questions that show you which of the steps they grasp and which they need more help understanding. Develop questions that map to what you have explored and discussed in class. If you are using publisher-provided question banks or assessment tools, be sure to review and select questions carefully to ensure alignment with what students have encountered in class or in your assignments. Incorporate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles into your test or quiz design. UDL embraces a commitment to offering students multiple means of demonstrating their understanding. Consider offering practice tests/quizzes and creating tests/quizzes with different types of questions (e.g., multiple choice, written, diagram-based). Also, offer options in the test/quiz itself. For example, give students a choice of questions to answer or let them choose between writing or speaking their essay response. Valuing different communication modes helps create an inclusive environment that supports all students. Creating multiple choice questions While it is not advisable to rely solely on multiple choice questions to gauge student learning, they are often necessary in large-enrollment courses. And multiple choice questions can add value to any course by providing instructors with quick insight into whether students have a basic understanding of key information. They are also a great way to incorporate more formative assessment into your teaching . Creating effective multiple choice questions can be difficult, especially if you want students to go beyond simply recalling information. But it is possible to develop multiple choice questions that require higher-order thinking. Here are some strategies for writing effective multiple choice questions: Design questions that ask students to evaluate information (e.g., use an example, case study, or real-world dataset). Make sure the answer options are consistent in length and detail. If the correct answer is noticeably different, students may end up choosing the right answer for the wrong reasons. Design questions focused on your learning goals. Avoid writing “gotcha” questions – the goal is not to trip students up, but to assess their learning and progress toward your learning outcomes. Test drive your questions with a colleague or teaching assistant to determine if your intention is clear. Creating essay and short answer questions Essay and short answer questions that require students to compose written responses of several sentences or paragraphs offer instructors insights into students’ ability to reason, synthesize, and evaluate information. Here are some strategies for writing effective essay questions: Signal the type of thinking you expect students to demonstrate. Use specific words and phrases (e.g., identify, compare, critique) that guide students to how to go about responding to the question. Write questions that can be reasonably answered in the time allotted. Consider offering students some guideposts on how much effort they should give to a question (e.g., “Write no more than 2 short paragraphs” or “Each short answer question is worth 20 points/10% of the test”). Share your grading criteria before the test or quiz. Rubrics are a great way to help students prepare for an essay- or short answer-based test. Strategies for grading essay and short answer questions Although essay and short paragraph questions are more labor-intensive to grade than multiple-choice questions, the pay-off is often greater – they provide more insight into students’ critical thinking skills. Here are some strategies to help streamline the essay/short answer grading process: Develop a rubric to keep you focused on your core criteria for success. Identify the point value/percentage associated with each criterion to streamline scoring. Grade all student responses to the same question before moving to the next question. For example, if your test has two essay questions, grade all essay #1 responses first. Then grade all essay #2 responses. This promotes grading equity and may provide a more holistic view of how the class as a whole answered each question. Focus on assessing students’ ideas and arguments. Few people write beautifully in a timed test. Unless it is key to your learning outcomes, don’t grade on grammar or polish. Helping students succeed While important in university settings, tests aren’t commonly found outside classroom settings. Think about your own work – how often are you expected to sit down, turn over a sheet of paper, and demonstrate the isolated skill or understanding listed on the paper in less than an hour? Sound stressful? It is! And sometimes that stress can be compounded by students’ lives beyond the classroom. “Giving a traditional test feels fair from the vantage point of an instructor….The students take it at the same time and work in the same room. But their lives outside the test spill into it. Some students might have to find child care to take an evening exam. Others…have ADHD and are under additional stress in a traditional testing environment. So test conditions can be inequitable. They are also artificial: People are rarely required to solve problems under similar pressure, without outside resources, after they graduate. They rarely have to wait for a professor to grade them to understand their own performance.” “ What fixing a snowblower taught one professor about teaching ” Chronicle of Higher Education Many students understandably experience stress, anxiety, and apprehension about taking tests and that can affect their performance. Here are some strategies for reducing stress in testing environments: Set expectations. In your syllabus and on the first day of class, share your course learning outcomes and clearly define what constitutes cheating. As the quarter progresses, talk with students about the focus, time, location, and format of each test or quiz. Provide study questions or low-/no-stakes practice tests that scaffold to the actual test. Practice questions should ask students to engage in the same kind of thinking you will be assessing on the actual test or quiz. Co-create questions with your students . Ask students (individually or in small groups) to develop and answer potential test questions. Collect these and use them to create the questions for the actual test. Develop relevant tests/quiz questions that assess skills and knowledge you explored during lecture or discussion. Share examples of successful answers and provide explanations of why those answers were successful. Promoting academic integrity The primary goal of a test or quiz is to provide insight into a student’s understanding or ability. If a student cheats, the instructor has no opportunity to assess learning and help the student grow. There are a variety of strategies instructors can employ to create a culture of academic integrity . Here are a few specifically related to developing tests and quizzes: Avoid high-stakes tests. High-stakes tests (e.g., a test worth more than 25% of the course grade) make it hard for a student to rebound from a mistake. If students worry that a disastrous exam will make it impossible to pass the course, they are more likely to cheat. Opt for assessments that provides students opportunities to grow and rebound from missteps (e.g., more low- or no-stakes assignments ). Require students to reference specific materials or assignments in their answers. Asking students to draw on specific materials in their answers makes it harder for students to copy/paste answers from other sources. Require students to explain or justify their answers . If it isn’t feasible to do this during the test, consider developing a post-test assignment that asks learners to justify their test answers. Instructors need not spend a lot of time grading these; just spot check them to get a sense of whether learners are thinking for themselves. Prompt students to apply their learning through questions built around discrete scenarios, real-world problems, or unique datasets. Use question banks and randomize questions when building your quiz or test. Include a certification question. Ask students to acknowledge their academic integrity responsibilities at the beginning of a quiz/exam with a question like this one: “The work I submit is my own work. I will not consult with, discuss the contents of this quiz/test with, or show the quiz/test to anyone else, including other students. I understand that doing so is a violation of UW’s academic integrity policy and may subject me to disciplinary action, including suspension and dismissal.” Allow learners to work together. Ask learners to collaborate to answer quiz/exam questions. By helping each other, learners engage with the course’s content and develop valuable collaboration skills. Assessing your assessment Observation and iteration are key parts of a reflective teaching practice . Take time after you’ve graded a test or quiz to examine its effectiveness and identify ways to improve it. Start by asking yourself some basic questions: Did the test/quiz assess what I wanted it to assess? Based on students’ performance on your questions, are you confident that students grasp the concepts and skills you designed the test/quiz to measure? Did the test align with my course goals and learning objectives? Does student performance indicate that they have made progress toward your learning goals? If not, you may need to revise your questions. Were there particular questions that many students missed? If so, reconsider how you’ve worded the question or examine whether the question asked students about something you didn’t discuss (or didn’t discuss enough) in class. Were students able to finish the test or quiz in the time allotted? If not, reconsider the number and difficulty of your questions. 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They can reveal if students understand the theory behind course material or how different concepts and theories relate to each other.  + Advantages and Challenges of essay exams Advantages: Can be used to measure higher order cognitive skills Takes relatively less time to write questions Difficult for respondents to get correct answers by guessing Challenges: Can be time consuming to administer and to score Can be challenging to identify measurable, reliable criteria for assessing student responses Limited range of content can be sampled during any one testing period Timed exams in general add stress unrelated to a student's mastery of the material + Creating an essay exam Limit the use of essay questions to learning aims that require learners to share their thinking processes, connect and analyze information, and communicate their understanding for a specific purpose.  Write each item so that students clearly understand the specific task and what deliverables are required for a complete answer (e.g. diagram, amount of evidence, number of examples). Indicate the relative amount of time and effort students should spend on each essay item, for example “2 – 3 sentences should suffice for this question”. Consider using several narrowly focused items rather than one broad item. Consider offering students choice among essay questions, while ensuring that all learning aims are assessed. When designing essay exams, consider the reasoning skills you want to assess in your students. The following table lists different skills to measure with example prompts to guide assessment questions.  Table from Piontek, 2008 Skill to Assess Possible Question Stems Comparing Relating Cause and Effect  Justifying Summarizing Generalizing Inferring Classifying Creating Applying Analyzing Synthesizing + Preparing students for an essay exam Adapted from Piontek, 2008 Prior to the essay exam Administer a formative assessment that asks students to do a brief write on a question similar to one you will use on an exam and provide them with feedback on their responses. Provide students with examples of essay responses that do and do not meet your criteria and standards.  Provide students with the learning aims they will be responsible for mastering to help them focus their preparation appropriately. Have students apply the scoring rubric to sample essay responses and provide them with feedback on their work. Resource video : 2-minute video description of a formative assessment that helps prepare students for an essay exam.  + Administering an essay exam Provide adequate time for students to take the assessment. A strategy some instructors use is to time themselves answering the exam questions completely and then multiply that time by 3-4. Endeavor to create a distraction-free environment. Review the suggestions for informal accommodations for multilingual learners , which may be helpful in setting up an essay exam for all learners. + Grading an essay exam To ensure essays are graded fairly and without bias: Outline what constitutes an acceptable answer (criteria for knowledge and skills). Select an appropriate scoring method based on the criteria. Clarify the role of writing mechanics and other factors independent of the learning aims being measured. Share with students ahead of time. Use a systematic process for scoring each essay item.  For instance, score all responses to a single question in one setting. Anonymize student work (if possible) to ensure fairer and more objective feedback. For example students could use their student ID number in place of their name. + References & Resources For more information on setting criteria, preparing students, and grading essay exams read:  Boye, A. (2019) Writing Better Essay Exams , IDEA paper #76. For more detailed descriptions of how to develop and score essay exams read: Piontek, M.E. (2008). Best Practices for Designing and Grading Exams, CRLT Occasional Paper # 24. Web resources Designing Effective Writing Assignments  (Teaching with Writing Program - UMNTC )  Writing Assignment Checklist (Teaching with Writing Program - UMNTC) Designing and Using Rubrics (Center for Writing - UMTC) Caroline Hilk Why Use Active Learning? Successful Active Learning Implementation Addressing Active Learning Challenges Research and Resources Addressing Challenges Course Planning Align Assessments Multiple Low Stakes Assessments Authentic Assessments Formative and Summative Assessments Varied Forms of Assessments Cumulative Assessments Equitable Assessments Multiple Choice Exams and Quizzes Academic Paper Skill Observation Alternative Assessments Assessment Plan Grade Assessments Prepare Students Reduce Student Anxiety SRT Scores: Interpreting & Responding Student Feedback Question Prompts Definitions and PWI Focus A Flexible Framework Class Climate Course Content An Ongoing Endeavor Working memory Retrieval of information Spaced practice Active learning Metacognition Research Questions and Design Gathering data Publication Learn About Your Context Design Your Course to Support Challenging Conversations Design Your Challenging Conversations Class Session Use Effective Facilitation Strategies What to Do in a Challenging Moment Debrief and Reflect On Your Experience, and Try, Try Again Supplemental Resources Why Use Team Projects? Project Description Examples Project Description for Students Team Projects and Student Development Outcomes Forming Teams Team Output Individual Contributions to the Team Individual Student Understanding Supporting Students Wrapping up the Project GRAD 8101: Teaching in Higher Education Finding a Practicum Mentor GRAD 8200: Teaching for Learning Proficiency Rating & TA Eligibility Schedule a SETTA TAPD Webinars 284 IMAGES PPT 3 Types of Writing Rubrics for Effective Assessments PPT Example of a Essay Question PPT assessment 2 essay VIDEO How to do a Essay Type Questions Types Of Assessment (Essay)/6th sem Bcom Income tax and gst PLUS ONE SOCIOLOGY| IMPORTANT QUESTIONS |200% ഉറപ്പ്!! Assessment and its Types: Online Recorded Lecture-8.1 Automatic assessment for Essay type questions using AI Part COMMENTS PDF PREPARING EFFECTIVE ESSAY QUESTIONS PREPARING EFFECTIVE ESSAY QUESTIONS Short answer and essay questions Short answer and essay questions are types of assessment that are commonly used to evaluate a student's understanding and knowledge. ... Show word count in Inspera - question type: Essay. In Canvas Quizzes, the word count of Essay questions appears as a counter in the bottom-right of the screen. Exam Questions: Types, Characteristics, and Suggestions Exam Questions: Types, Characteristics, and Suggestions Strategies and Tips Regarding Essay Questions on an Examination However, essay-type questions can be brought into exam situations and can be quite beneficial in assessing student understanding. Regarding the definition of an essay question, one that has been helpful in deconstructing some of the core components of this type of questioning comes from John Stalnaker (1951). PDF Essay Exams: Common Question Types Essay Exams: Common Question Types 22 Essay Question Words You Must Understand to Prepare a Well 22 Essay Question Words You Must Understand to Prepare ... What makes effective test questions and answers for assessments? Thoughtful test questions and answers can help create an effective assessment, one that accurately measures student knowledge. When test questions are crafted with learning objectives in mind, they help foster study habits, influence knowledge retention, and prepare students for eventual summative assessments. Furthermore, when students feel an ... Essay Essay. Essay assessments ask students to demonstrate a point of view supported by evidence. They allow students to demonstrate what they've learned and build their writing skills. An essay question prompts a written response, which may vary from a few paragraphs to a number of pages. Essay questions are generally open-ended. Essay Test: The Ultimate Guide with The Best Strategies An essay test is a type of assessment in which a student is prompted to respond to a question or a series of questions by ... Adhering to a specific structure can enhance your ability to answer essay questions effectively. The 7 Steps of an Essay. Writing an essay test typically involves seven steps: Understanding the question; Brainstorming ideas; Essay Exams You must be realistic about the time constraints of an essay exam. If you write one dazzling answer on an exam with three equally-weighted required questions, you earn only 33 points—not enough to pass at most colleges. This may seem unfair, but keep in mind that instructors plan exams to be reasonably comprehensive. Classroom Assessment The short response items on the Florida assessment (FCAT) are designed to take about 5 minutes to complete and the student is allowed up to 8 lines for each answer. The short responses are scored using a 2-point scoring rubric. A complete and correct answer is worth 2 points. A partial answer is worth 1 point. Sample Short Response Question. Short Answer & Essay Tests Short Answer & Essay Tests. Strategies, Ideas, and Recommendations from the faculty Development Literature. General Strategies. Do not use essay questions to evaluate understanding that could be tested with multiple-choice questions. Save essay questions for testing higher levels of thought (application, synthesis, and evaluation), not recall ... ESSAY QUESTIONS--Types & How to Answer Make sure you understand what type of answer the main verb calls for (a diagram a summary, details, an analysis, an evaluation). Circle all the keywords in the question. Decide if you need to write a 1-paragraph or a multi-paragraph answer. Write a brief outline of all the points you want to mention in your answer. Restate the question and ... How to Write a Good Answer to Exam Essay Questions: 13 Steps How to Write a Good Answer to Exam Essay Questions PDF Analysing an essay question Analysing an essay question Tips for Creating and Scoring Essay Tests Tips for Creating and Scoring Essay Tests How to Structure an Essay How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates CETL- Assessment Resource Centre This type of essays allows the students to become involved and see the relevance of the task. Structured Essays Structured Essays are essays which have specific questions or topics that require answers. For example: In Shakespeare's play ' Hamlet, discuss and compare some of the soliloquies in terms of its style, syntax and imagery. Constructing tests Essay and short answer questions that require students to compose written responses of several sentences or paragraphs offer instructors insights into students' ability to reason, synthesize, and evaluate information. Here are some strategies for writing effective essay questions: Signal the type of thinking you expect students to demonstrate. Essay Exams Essay Exams. Essay exams provide opportunities to evaluate students' reasoning skills such as the ability to compare and contrast concepts, justify a position on a topic, interpret cases from the perspective of different theories or models, evaluate a claim or assertion with evidence, design an experiment, and other higher level cognitive skills. PDF DOCUMENT RESUME how to write essay questions of different. types. Finally, it offers. practical advice on how to evaluate and mark essay-type questions. The different forms of essay-type. questions. As was indicated in the booklet on 'Student. assessment', 'extended-writing' questions of the essay type. are still one of the most widely assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis