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Practice questions from your readings: a method that cites

By Ekrem Çetinkaya · Published · Türkçesi

Write practice questions from the readings, not from the slides: for each claim on your claim list, write one question whose answer is in a named place in a source, then vary the type (recall, apply, compare, critique) and the difficulty. Keep the answer and the source location next to the question. Twenty questions per session, written this way, cover the material and survive a dispute.

This guide is for instructors who want a question bank that grows with the course. It covers where questions come from, the types worth writing, a difficulty ladder, the answer key, and how to let an assistant draft them without losing the source trail.

Why from the readings and not from the slides?

Slides are a compression of the readings. A question written from a slide tests whether the student saw the slide; a question written from the reading tests whether they understood the material the slide points to. It also keeps you honest: if a question cannot be answered from any assigned source, either the source is missing from the list or the question does not belong in the course.

The practical benefit is the dispute. "Where is this in the reading?" is answered by the source line next to the question, not by memory.

Start from the claim list

If the deck was written from a claim list (one claim per slide, each with a source and location, as in lecture slides from your readings), the question bank starts there. Each claim yields at least one question. If there is no claim list, make one now: go through the session's readings and write down the ten to fifteen things a student should be able to say afterwards, each with its page or section.

Question types worth writing

For each claim, pick one or two of:

  1. Recall: state the claim. "What does the scheduler do when the quantum expires?"
  2. Apply: use it on a new case. "Given these three processes and a quantum of 4, draw the Gantt chart."
  3. Compare: set it against a neighbouring claim. "When does round-robin do worse than FCFS, and why?"
  4. Critique: find the limit. "The chapter assumes context switches are free. What changes if they cost 10% of a quantum?"
  5. Trace the source: "The paper reports a 2× slowdown. Which figure, and under what load?"

Recall questions are quick to write and quick to answer; they are the floor, not the bank. A session's twenty questions should have more apply and compare than recall.

A difficulty ladder

Write three questions per claim at rising difficulty: one a student who did the reading can answer, one that needs the lecture, one that needs both plus a step of their own. Label them. The labels let you assemble a quiz (mostly level one), a problem set (levels two and three) and an exam (a spread) from the same bank.

The answer key is part of the question

Every question carries, on the same line or the next:

A bank without keys is a list of prompts; the key is what makes it reusable next term and gradable by someone else.

Format

Plain text, one file per session, next to the deck:

## Q7 (apply, level 2)
Three processes arrive at t=0 with bursts 6, 3, 8. Quantum 4. Draw the round-robin Gantt chart and give the average waiting time.
**Answer:** P1 P2 P3 P1 P3 …; average waiting 5.67.
**Source:** os-book 5.3.4, example 5.2. **Claim:** RR waiting time depends on quantum.

Markdown is searchable, versioned with the deck, and exports to whatever the learning management system takes. The same questions, or a subset, close the lecture handout.

Drafting with an assistant

Give the assistant the readings and the claim list, and ask for questions per claim with the type, the level, the answer and the source location for each. Then read the answers against the sources. The failure mode is a plausible question whose answer is not in the readings; the source line is how you catch it. Reject any question the assistant cannot place.

Lecture Studio does this from the unit's chat. Practice questions is one of the starter prompts: the assistant searches the readings attached to the unit and the course, writes one retrieval question per block of the deck, shows you the questions first, and then inserts each as a question slide followed by an answer slide at the end of its block. For a separate bank in the format above, ask for a Markdown file in the unit instead; the assistant writes it next to the deck. The app runs on macOS 15 or later and needs an Oberik project key; it is free during the beta.

FAQ

How many practice questions per lecture?

Fifteen to twenty-five, covering every claim at least once, with more apply and compare questions than recall.

Should exam questions come from the slides or the readings?

From the readings, with the slides as the map. A question answerable only from a slide tests attendance; a question answerable from the reading tests understanding.

How do I write a good answer key?

Answer, source and location, and the claim tested, on the same line as the question. That makes the bank gradable by someone else and easy to update when the deck changes.

Can an AI write exam questions?

It can draft them. Give it the sources and require a source location per question, then check every answer against the reading and reject what it cannot place.

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