Table of Contents

AY 300 - Writing Exams and Quizzes

As a GSI, you will probably be asked to write and give section quizzes and/or write exam questions. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind in writing these types of questions:

Test the Material Emphasized

There are two aspects to this. Firstly, and we hope obviously, you should not test students on minuscule details or lecture asides. Instead, the vast majority of the exam should cover the main points presented in lecture and discussion section.

Secondly, your exams should challenge students in the same ways that they've been challenged on their homeworks and quizzes: the kinds of problems on your exam should be the same kinds of problems you've presented in your homeworks and quizzes, and the skills necessary to solve the exam problems should be the same skills you've tested throughout the course. Ideally, this means that your exams will test whether your students have a sophisticated understanding of the important concepts of the class, rather than a peripheral understanding of everything. In practice, we rarely design our homeworks and quizzes well enough to demand real sophistication from our students in the middle of the semester, and it's unfair to suddenly ask them to develop such sophistication during test times. Usually, a good practical exam question is one that requires the student to use what they learned in class to move slightly beyond what was directly presented (e.g. apply a concept in a slightly different situation than the one shown in lecture or join together two different concept applications in a way not previously presented).

Keep Questions Short and To the Point

Your exams should be challenging, while also requiring the student to spend the majority of their time thinking, rather than reading. It is especially unfair to non-native English speakers to give long, wordy questions. Such questions are also often ambiguous.

Edit Questions for Clarity

Keeping your exam questions short will automatically make most questions clear. However, it is still a good idea to carefully edit your exams because ambiguous questions both upset students and make grading difficult later. If possible, have a fellow GSI (or Head GSI or Ay 300 instructor) take your quiz or exam in advance of giving it. The other person may have good suggestions for improving question wording. Note that evaluating others' exam questions is equally or more important as knowing how to write them, since GSIs almost always vet exams but usually only contribute a few questions at most.

Don't Write a Long Test

Your test should assess student understanding, not student speed. Therefore, good exams should be easily completed in the allocated time by 90% of students. One way to gauge whether your test is too long is by having a fellow GSI take your exam. Double (or probably triple) the time it takes the GSI to take the exam in order to estimate how long the exam will take your typical student.

Quizzes

Quizzes vs. Homeworks

Quizzes are:

Quizzes are used:

Good quizzes are:

Quizzes are meant to be relatively low stress (especially compared to full exams)

Exams

Exams exist to:

What makes good multiple choice exam questions?

What makes bad ones?

Non-multiple choice questions