Best Practices: - Writing Fill in the Blank/Short Answer Questions

Best Practices:

Writing Fill in the Blank/Short Answer Questions

Pros and Cons of Fill in the Blank Questions

Pros

Cons

Best Practices

• Provideawidesamplingofcontent

• Minimizeguessingcomparedwithmultiplechoiceand

true/false

• Vocabularycanbeassessedinaminimaltime

• Constructionisrelativelyeasy

• Diculttoconstructinordertomeasuremorethansimple

informationrecall

• Diculttoconstructwithoutprovidingrelevantcluesto

correctanswer

• Moretime-consumingtoscorethanotherobjectivequestions

• Ensureonlyonecorrectanswertoavoidconfusionand

dicultygrading.

• Blankareashouldappearattheendorclosetotheendof

astatement.

• Omitonlysignicantwordsfromthestatement.Donotomit

somanywordsthatthestatementbecomesambiguous.

Poor: TheConstitutionalConventionmetin______________

in______________.

Better: TheConstitutionalConventionmetinthecityof

_______________in1787.

• Ifpossible,writecompletionitemsthathaveasinglecorrect

answer.

Poor:AbrahamLincolnwasbornin____________________.

Potential answers: Kentucky,1809,February,alogcabin,etc.

Better: AbrahamLincolnwasborninthestateof_________.

• Useblankareasofthesamelengththroughoutthetestso

thatthelengthdoesnotrevealanswer.

• Avoidliftingtextfromstudymaterialsorotherresourcesto

avoidanswermemorization.

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