Write Your Own Questions!
Nothing makes you see a test like trying to see what the test-makers are doing.
Here’s some advice you probably won’t see from Khan Academy or a big test-prep company: You should write your own practice test questions!
I know that most students, and indeed many teachers, test-prep tutors, and counselors, don’t want to write a multiple-choice SAT or ACT style question. They’re strange, specific, and don’t operate like anything else. I also freely admit that I am strange here. I’ve written practice test questions for multiple test-prep companies, plus I have made my own trivia questions because I enjoy making them. I assume I relish crafting a multiple-choice question in a different light than you, whoever you are.
Let me be clear. I don’t think anyone besides the testing companies should really be writing a whole Practice Test. You don’t even need to have more practice questions. There are certainly more than enough out there. Whether you need ACT questions, SAT questions, PSAT questions, or AP Questions, they are easy to find.
Writing your own multiple-choice practice test questions gives you a different understanding of each test. It allows you to see the test from the perspective of the test-maker. The purpose of a standardized test is wildly different than the purpose of a class test. On an English, History, Science, Math, or Foreign Language test in school, your teacher is assessing your knowledge of the content presented in the class material. It is about what you know.
The answer for standardized test questions must be found in the question itself. An SAT Reading & Writing Passage is just 3 to 4 sentences. Whether the question asks about main idea, grammar rules, or a missing word, you have what you need to find the right answer in those 3 to 4 sentences. If you try putting together your own passage, you’ll see how small the passage is. The question must be extremely focused.
The longer ACT passages are not necessarily opening up much more space. Select a 500 to 650 word passage from anywhere you’d like. Now ask yourself “What’s the author’s intent?” or “What word is challenging in context?” This is why questions on ACT Reading are so precisely worded. “The main point of the second paragraph (lines 21–36) is that:”, “The information in lines 57–64 primarily functions to,” and “The sixth paragraph (lines 79–85) differs from the rest of the passage in that it:” are all narrowing the passage.
You might also notice none of those examples are actual questions. Each test has its own style of question writing. They have to work this way to make sure the questions serve their function. When you try writing your own questions, you’ll see how a multiple-choice question must allow for no other correct answers. It’s why math questions often begin with the word “If…” or “For all positive integers,” or a complicated explanation of a scenario. They have to limit the options for correct answers to 1.
Where you will really see how specific a test-question must be is by writing the wrong answer choices. You will know the right answer when you begin writing the question, just like actual test-question writers do. “If x+10=13, then what does x+7 equal?” seems like a simple standardized test math question. To solve it, you subtract 10 from 13, finding that x equals 3. 3+7 is 10.
Then you need to find the ways a student can mess up even a simple question. x=3, so 3 should be a wrong answer. 10, 13, and 7 are numbers in the equation, so they could leap out to a test-taker going too fast. If a student added 10 and 13 in the first step, they would get 30 from the second equation. Throw that in, too. And now you have more than 3 wrong answers to choose from when building a practice question.
Writing your own multiple-choice questions can also help on tests assessing content knowledge. Take a relatively simple seeming American history question: “Who won the 1840 Presidential Election?”
That is a question of factual knowledge. If you were writing practice questions for classmates in a history class, you will be seeing if they remember that fact of history. William Henry Harrison, a Whig from Ohio, beat sitting president Martin van Buren, a Democrat from New York. Faced with that question on a test, without multiple-choice options, you need to have that information at hand when you see the test question.
Now think about building a multiple-choice question. You need to put William Henry Harrison down. Martin van Buren would be a good wrong answer choice. James K. Polk won the 1844 election, and that makes Polk another excellent wrong answer. John Tyler was Harrison’s running mate, and eventual successor when Harrison died in office. Throw him in there, too. Now there’s a set of four answer choices for the question “Who won the 1840 Presidential Election?”--William Henry Harrison, Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, and John Tyler.
Finding the correct answer choice among that quartet still probably requires a student knowing the 1840 Presidential Election’s winner before seeing the question. Now try and build a question that can guide someone to the answer choice. Shift the question to say “What Whig candidate won the 1840 Presidential Election?” If the classmates you’re giving these practice questions to remember Van Buren and Polk were Democrats, that can eliminate them. If the answer choices are less focused on 1840’s politics, the question becomes even simpler. Make the wrong answers “George Washington,” “Thomas Jefferson,” and “Abraham Lincoln,” and William Henry Harrison now stands out like a kid in a suit at a punk show.
You will do better on any test when you can see how the test is made. The best way to do that is to write your own questions. Then you can see how limited questions must be, the narrow way they have to be phrased, and how multiple-choice answers shape the question’s difficulty. You’ll also make any test just a little less scary.