Is your quiz giving away its own answers?

A quiz can look perfectly reasonable when you check each question on its own. Read the questions together, though, and a different problem can appear: one of them supplies the answer to another.

If you want to find out what pupils can recall, that is worth catching before you share the sheet. A correct answer is harder to interpret when the word a pupil needs is printed a little farther down the page.

Imagine you’re putting together a quiz for Year 4 science in England, after teaching changes of state. Evaporation, condensation and the relationship between temperature and evaporation are part of the science programme of study, so you want to see what pupils remember and how they use it. The first version below deliberately includes two answer clues.

Read the whole quiz

You want pupils to recall the two process names and use what they know in familiar situations. Your first version might look like this.

1. Water in a shallow dish slowly changes from liquid water into water vapour without boiling. What is this change called?

2. Water vapour changes into tiny drops of liquid water. What is this change called?

3. Evaporation is the change from liquid water to water vapour. Two identical open dishes start with the same amount of water. The water in one dish is kept warmer than the other, below boiling. All other conditions are the same. Which dish would you expect to lose more water over the same time?

4. Condensation is the change from water vapour to liquid water. Tiny drops appear on the inside of a cold window in a warm room. As the drops form, is the water vapour near the window warming or cooling?

Find the two clues

The opening sentence in question 3 names evaporation and describes the very change that question 1 asks pupils to name. A pupil who cannot recall the word could find it there. Question 4 does the same for condensation, supplying the answer to question 2.

So when you mark those first two answers, you cannot be sure whether a pupil remembered the terms or found them elsewhere on the sheet. That uncertainty matters if recall was what you wanted to check.

The University of Waterloo’s question-writing guidance raises this issue for multiple-choice questions. Here, we’re applying the same check to short answers.

For the teacher key, question 1 is evaporation and question 2 is condensation. In question 3, you would expect the dish with warmer water to lose more water under the stated matching conditions. The answer to question 4 is cooling.

USGS describes liquid water changing into water vapour and water vapour forming liquid drops on a colder surface. The answer about the dishes is a prediction under the stated conditions, rather than a measured result.

Revise the wording, then the order

Question 3 still makes sense without its opening definition, as does question 4. Once those sentences are gone, put each naming question beside its related application. The revised quiz follows original questions 1, 3, 2, 4:

1. Water in a shallow dish slowly changes from liquid water into water vapour without boiling. What is this change called?

2. Two identical open dishes start with the same amount of water. The water in one dish is kept warmer than the other, below boiling. All other conditions are the same. Which dish would you expect to lose more water over the same time?

3. Water vapour changes into tiny drops of liquid water. What is this change called?

4. Tiny drops appear on the inside of a cold window in a warm room. As the drops form, is the water vapour near the window warming or cooling?

The answers now run evaporation; the warmer-water dish; condensation; cooling. The four tasks are still there. Taking out the definitions removes the direct clues, while the new order brings each pair of related questions together.

A pupil can look ahead or return to an earlier question, so a definition would still be available wherever you moved it on the page. That is why the wording needs another read after you change the sequence.

Check your own quiz

For your next quiz, think about what each answer is meant to show you. A definition may be helpful when pupils are practising an application. If you’re checking whether they can recall the term themselves, printing it elsewhere gives them another way to answer. Questions can still share a topic without giving each other away.

Keep any access support you’ve agreed for your pupils. Reading a question aloud or changing its presentation can help them respond. What matters here is whether that support supplies the particular knowledge you’re trying to check.

Read the pupil version, including its examples and instructions, with that purpose in mind. When you find words that give another answer away, mark them, revise and work through the whole set again. Keep your key and explanations separate so you can see what pupils will have in front of them.

If you’re using the Topic retrieval grid with Maths pupils aged 13 to 15, leave time for that final read. Once pupils have filled the blank grid with their own questions, ask them to check the set for answer clues before they swap with a partner.

Catching the two clues here cannot show how difficult the revised quiz will be for your pupils. You’ll still need to weigh the questions against what they’ve learned and the support they need, as part of deciding whether teaching material is ready for your class.