PREPARING AND GRADING EXAMS
Exams are powerful learning and assessment tools, but effective examinations are not simple to create. Further, grading exams that use questions other than multiple choice can be daunting. Below are resources to help you create and grade exams in such a way that they will provide you and your students with the feedback all need.
Quizzes, Tests and Exams is excerpted from B.G. Davis' book "Tools for Teaching." It contains detailed descriptions of the types of tests one can construct, general strategies for testing, test question construction, and alternative test formats.
Grading Practices addresses how to set criteria for grading, minimize student complaints about grades, and effectively use different grading strategies.
Essay Exams describes the purposes for and characteristics of effective in-class essay exams, provides a checklist for designing and evaluating essay exams, and provides a key word list for constructing essay questions.
Teachers aren't the only ones who can or have to create exams! A professor describes the use and benefits of Student Generated Test Questions.
For more information on this or any teaching related topic, please contact the Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center (x3499) or ftlc@gvsu.edu.
Page last modified August 1, 2012
