How to Turn Your Notes into a Quiz You Can Mark
A quiz written from your own notes can be an excellent test or a waste of an evening. The difference is whether the questions can be answered from memory or only by finding the sentence they were copied from. The second kind feels like revision and measures nothing.
The Quiz Generator builds a self-marking set or a printable answer sheet. This article covers how to write questions worth answering.
Quick answer
Turn each major idea into a question whose answer is not visible in the wording of the question. Cover the notes before answering, and mark honestly: a question you half-answered is a gap. Aim for a mix of recall, explanation, and application, because each finds a different kind of weakness. Between fifteen and twenty-five questions per topic is enough to show what you know.
Start from the structure, not the sentences
Read through your notes and list the main ideas first. For each idea, decide what you should be able to do with it: state it, explain why it is true, compare it with something else, or use it in a problem. The question follows from that decision.
Working from sentences produces questions that quote half a sentence and ask for the other half. Those are answered by pattern-matching the wording, not by understanding the content. Working from structure produces questions that require you to reconstruct the idea.
Three kinds of question
- Recall: define a term, state a formula, name a stage. These are fast to write and find gaps in basic knowledge.
- Explanation: why does this happen, what causes this, what would change if this were different. These find shallow understanding.
- Application: given a new example, what follows. These find whether you can use the idea, which is what most exams ask.
A set of only recall questions will let you feel prepared while leaving the explanation and application gaps untouched. A set of only application questions is slow to write and skips over the basics that make application possible.
Answering honestly
Cover the notes. Answer everything you can before looking. When you check, count a question as wrong if you could not produce the answer without help, even if you recognised it when you saw it. Recognition is not recall, and exams require the second.
Marking harshly is only useful if you then do something with the result. Note which questions you missed and why: not known at all, known but confused, or known but misread. Three different problems with three different fixes, and the third usually costs the most marks.
Using the result
Rewrite the questions you missed and test again after a few days. Questions you answered correctly can be dropped from the next round or tested less often. The set shrinks as you learn, which is why testing is faster than rereading: you stop spending time on what you already know.
For how to word questions so they actually test recall, see How to Write Questions That Actually Test Recall. For why this beats rereading, see Why Self-Testing Beats Rereading Your Notes.
Paste your notes into Quiz Generator, write the questions by hand rather than accepting the first ones offered, and cover the notes before you answer.
Common questions
How many questions should a quiz have?
Between fifteen and twenty-five per topic is enough to show what you know without taking an evening to write. Good questions are slower to answer, so fewer are needed than if you write slogan-style recall items.
Should I write the questions with my notes open?
No. Questions written while looking at the answer inherit cues from it, so the wording points at the answer and recognising it feels like knowing the content. Write from memory of the topic, then check against the notes.
What should I do with questions I got wrong?
Note why: not known at all, known but confused, or known but misread. The three have different fixes, and misreading usually costs the most marks. Rewrite the missed questions and test again after a few days.