What makes a test question great?

Keep it simple. Test questions are generally very “to the point” and direct.
It should be relatively easy for people that have been doing the coursework.

Essay questions are great because it eliminates random guessing. It makes students express the knowledge they’re supposed to have been learning.

If someone is trying to BS their way through an essay question, it becomes apparently very quickly.

My college classmates and I still talk about our Freshman English Comp. final two-hour exam (55 years ago.) Discuss ”**The Doctor’s Dilemma.”

**(A play written in 1906 by G B Shaw.)

It was memorable; that’s all I can say.

The best exams I have taken so far in college were all written by the same professor. I cannot deconstruct his multiple choice questions for you, other than to say that they always pinpoint absolutely one’s degree of knowledge: if you haven’t learned the material, you won’t do well by the traditional means of trying to “narrow the choices”.

As to his short answer questions, I believe I understand what makes them so good: they don’t require an extensive essay, in fact, most can be answered in a paragraph or so, but each requires a deeper analytical understanding of the material.

I have never felt, in his class, that I could study “towards” his exams. The way to pass was to really learn the subject as well as one could. Far more satisfying than classes in which I can follow a study guide.

My anatomy teacher told us that the only hard questions are the ones we don’t know the answer to and the easy ones are the ones the ones we know the answer to. So I suggest to make them questions everyone should know the answer to.

A good test question is one that tests your understanding of the course material. A student who has been coming to lecture, doing their homework, and studying out of class should be able to do the problem without any trouble, but it should not be so easy that someone who has not put in enough effort could guess his/her way through it. It should not expect you to know or memorize information that was not covered in the course material.

Don’t ask questions that require memorization, that is not learning.

I hate trick questions. I know that sounds like it goes without saying, but some teachers love to put ambiguous terms and phrasing into their questions to make it so it is tricky. As a science major, I always hated when the professor would put some ambiguous unit of measure in to trick us. Even saying something like “The water temperature is 25 F”. I’m 24 year old. I know how to convert these things, but don’t make me do it on a test where you aren’t really testing my ability to convert units. Make it all metric and SI units. It is simply done to trick you.

I also hate true/false questions. One of my professors in grad school had a page of T/F on every exam. I never got more than half of them right. Another example of things to trick you.

Well stated, coherent, not intentionally “tricky” questions are the best. What I like even more, especially for younger students who may have 3 exams in one day is to hand them a sheet of maybe 10 essay-type questions a couple days before the exam. They should all be questions they can answer, but you’ll only put 4 of them on the test. That way, they can focus their studying to what you think are the most important topics (which has always been my problem…I study the wrong things.) but its not like you’re telling them what’s going to be on the test.

Questions that make students apply what they learned instead of that memorization crap are always good.
Additionally; do the best you can to keep the questions short and easy to understand; I cannot count how many times I’ve gotten marked wrong because the question was poorly worded and could be taken different ways.

just wanted to say that I’m actually about to take a BIO exam in a few minutes. If anything strikes me, I’ll let you know.

The best test questions are ones that require you to understand the material- more than memorization.

I agree with @Syger. I like a question that requires me to think, to find connections between multiple pieces of information. A good question should make me have to stop and think for a minute. Everything else is just reading texts and memory.

Modded.

Which one of these is NOT the answer: (Hate these.. please avoid) XD

One where the answer is “C”.

Pretty colors and fruit scented pens.

There are several characteristics that make a test question great. Very few of those characteristics are readily explicable by people who TAKE tests. Rather, you have to think about a test question as a form of sampling.

The purpose of the question is to learn to what extent the method of teaching has been effective. So, the question must come from the OBJECTIVE of the session, lecture, lab or whatever. If you know what was supposed to be taught and learned, you design the question to sample the knowledge of the respondents to determine the extent to which the teaching method fulfilled those teaching goals.

Unlike what most people think, the test question should not be aimed at trying to determine which students are doing well and which are not. The test question should try to determine what METHODS OF TEACHING are doing well and not.

A good question is written is such a way that it is interpreted the same way by every respondent. It gives clear options for answering (multiple choice, fill-in, etc.) It is easily tabulatable or scorable.

A GREAT test question is presented in a way that makes the respondent enjoy the experience of working through the problem and providing an answer that clearly demonstates the respondents level of knowledge of the subject.

I always put stickers on my tests that I was sure I didn’t do well on. The TA who graded them liked them, but I never got any more points. Bummer.

I also disagree that “good” test questions do not include rote memorization. For example, I always thought biology included a lot of memorization, but it wasn’t a bad thing. Knowing the names of muscles, bones, etc. are all things a biology student should know, but really the only why to know those things and test for them is to memorize them.

This doesn’t directly answer the Q, but please don’t ask anything like “Which one of these….?”
A) Blah blah
B) Blah blah
C) Blah Blah
D) None of the above
E) A and B
F) B and C
G) A,B,C

A good test question is literally that. It tests your knowledge about the subject without trying to see if it can give you a headache first. In classes like intro bio, it’s key for students to get the general concepts since they’ll forget the rest anyway. So if I had to frame the Qs, I’d ask something that checks if they are getting the main points as opposed to did they memorize every bullet point on each slide.

@PnL – Ooh. I hate those questions!! Lazy test making, that’s what I call it.

@Les

I would think that would take longer. I had a teacher who used to list six roman numerals that listed several things each (or just one thing each) and then there would 5 choices like this:

A. I, II B. I, II, V C. I, III, IV, V D. I, II, III, IV, V E. none of the above. It was horrible!

@Question

I wasn’t sure if you wanted multiple choice or short answer. Personally, I like both, but I can see how people may prefer short answer because it makes you think more than just figure out which answer sounds the best. And I don’t mean short answer where you list of a bunch of memorized facts, but where you interpret facts and such. The problem is, though, that in bio, it doesn’t seem like there’s so much interpreting (I’m biased towards language arts, sorry) and so multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, or something along those lines is more realistic.

I actually had teachers whose tests sometimes wouldn’t match the material. That’s number one. It has to match the material. It also should not be long-winded and tedious like the one I provided, but should not be so easy that all the answers are obviously wrong except for one. It should make people think about which answer is better and the people who really know the material will know the correct answer. And I agree that tests evaluate both the teachers and the students. I remember we had a test in 7th grade (that I got an A on; it was grammar; I’m a natural) but almost everyone else got a C or lower. The teacher knew it her fault, she didn’t count the grade, redid the test, and people did much better the next time.

I like tests where I don’t have to do much studying. Tests where if I’ve been to class and taken notes, I should know that I will do fine. Those are the kinds that work.

Gotcha. Great answers so far, everyone.

While I can write a couple short-answer/essay questions, there will not be very many on the exam. We have 800(!) students so we are steering away from these. (Personally, I would have been okay with grading more, but the other TAs and profs refused.)

If anyone would like to be my guinea pig and let me know what you think of these questions before I send them off to the profs, I would be very appreciative! :)

@PnL: I agree wholeheartedly! Those give me nightmares!
@nikipedia: I’ll be your guinea pig! Hey, maybe it’ll help me study! :)

Aw, darn it. I almost wrote one of those A and B, A and C, etc questions! It wasn’t out of laziness, I swear! The question was a little too general for an essay question, but more complicated than just a straight multiple choice. But I will defer to you ladies :)

@La_chica_gomela: maybe head over to the chat room so we can discuss the Qs?

@gailcalled: My favorite final exam had two questions on it.

1. Pick four sonatas from this list of eight and discuss how they reflect and diverge from sonata form.

2. Pick four lieder from this list of eight and discuss how they fit into the larger tradition of lieder.

There were about eight of us in the class. We spent a solid eight hours writing.

@les I graduated with a degree in Education, and we were taught that trick questions are a big no no. They contribute NOTHING to the student’s knowledge. I figure the questions are more of a statement of the power the teacher has over a student, and that sucks.