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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 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.
Don't give students a choice of questions to answer.
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.
Ask students to write more than one essay.
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.
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 Give students advice on how to approach an essay or short-
answer test.
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

State the question clearly and precisely.
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.
Consider the layout of the question.
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.
Write out the correct answer yourself.
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 on guidelines for full and partial credit.
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
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 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.
Read the exams without looking at the students' names.
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.
Skim all exams quickly, without assigning any grades.
Before you begin grading, you will want an overview of the
general level of performance and the range of students'
responses.
Choose examples of exams to serve as anchors or standards.
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.
Grade each exam question by question rather than grading all
questions for a single student.
Shuffle papers before scoring the next question to distribute your
fatigue factor randomly. By randomly shuffling papers you also
avoid ordering effects.
Avoid judging exams on extraneous factors.
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 comments on students' exams.
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 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.
Strive to balance positive and critical comments.
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.
Read only a modest number of exams at a time.
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).
If you can, read some of the papers twice.
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.
Place the grade on the last page of the exam.
This protects students' privacy when you return or they pick up
their tests.
Returning Essay Exams
Return exams promptly.
A quick turnaround reinforces learning and capitalizes on
students' interest in the results. Try to return tests within a week
or so.
Review the exam in class.
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.
Use groups to discuss test questions.
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.
Get feedback from the class about the test.
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.
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 Keep a file of essay questions.
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.

Sources
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.
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 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.
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