.

Types of question:what are we to ask about?

Chapter ll Questionim

Open-ended, multiple choice or true/false?

There is no reason to excludeany of these types of question. Open-ended questions
are those to which the student can give any response that he considers suitable;the
examples on p185 are open-ended,but the term is appliedparticularly to the wh-and
how/why forms, since they offer the greatest scope for the responder. Ln multiple
choice questions (IYICQs),the student has to choose fiom a set of possible responses.
For example:
What happened to the trout?
a It was caught
b It escaped down the stream.
c The fisherman had it for supper.
d It hid under a black stone.
True/falsequestionspresent a statement;the student has to decideif it is true or
false according to the text. For example:
The trout was caught by the fisherman. TA?
Of these types, a e TLE' question is in some respects the most limited, but it can be
useful and is not necessarilytrivial- T/F questions can promote discussion, Eke
MCQs (seep182-3);more choices make discussion more interesting,but T/F
questions are preferableif there is only one likely misinterpretationof the text.

3 They force the student to thiTlkthings out for Emself.

Even the best MCQs have to include the correct answer as one of the options
(unless you include 'None of the above'). This can be an advantage: it guides the
students and yet, ifthe distractors are well chosen, it makes them think. But you
may want advanced students to come to terms directly with the text, without an
indication of your own view of the correct answer, even in company with less
suitable choices. In this case, open-endedquestions are the only possibility.

The language of responses

Inability to express themselves in the target language needlesslylimits both the kind
and the quality of the responses students give. It is quite possible that students who
are permitted to use their L1 in responding will explore the text more accurately and
thoroughlythan those who are restricted to target language responses.
Whether this is acceptable depends on your local situation, but it is importantnot to .
dismiss the use of the mother tongue out of hand. Some students may never need to
espress themselves in the target language. Why should they not respond in the
language that most clearly enables them to show that they understand, or to explain
where their problems lie?
In many circumstancesthis would be unaccgptable;and it is right to be cautious, lest'
there is a flood of L1 in the classroom. good compromise is to accept L1 responses
only when to insist on the target language would produce undue delay or result in
poor quality answers.
d

MCQs can be very effective, but they are the mast difficulttype to-devise-The need for
three or four options leads to some very implausible items (see examples on p191); but
ifthey are not plausible,the number of genuine alternatives is reduced, so the choice
is not redly 'multiple' at all;in such cases, the T/F format is more satisfactory.
Open-endedquestionsmay, as we saw, require very short answers,but typically they
demand rather more; their disadvantages are thus:
1 The answers cannot be assessed objectively.
'
This is important for testing, but not when we are trying to teach people. As we
have seen, a correct answer is not enough.
2 They require students to produce responses in thetarget language.

It is possible to iznderstand target lahguage texts without being able to express

yourself adequately in that language. But if questions demand subtle or
complicatedanswers,this is a problem; the student may understand both the text
and the questions,but be unable to express the'answers he wouldlike to give. One
- .
solution is to accept answers in the L1 (as discussedin the next section).
However, open-ended questions have some important advantages:
'

1 They are relatIve1y easy to devise.

Devisinggood questions always requires skill, but at least with open-endedones

you do not have to worry about supplyinggood distractors (as for MCQs) but can
go to the point directly.
2 They can be used for ~ W ~ a lany
l y purpose.
So can MCQs, but they arePsometimesclumsy. Ethe point to be clarifiedby the
question is straightforward, it may be uneconomicalto use the MCQformat. Ifthe
point is very complex, the ~ ~ Q i t s e l f mhave
a y to be complex, so that
understanding it is more W c u l t than understandingthe text. In such cases,
open-endedquestions are preferred.
- -

The language of questions

It is not always possible to expressthe questionyou want to ask in straightforward
lzinguage, especiallyif the text is itself difficult. People sometimes maintain that
reading the questions is part of the reading task, but this is only partly valid. It is
certainly a reading task, but the reading task is making sense of the text itself, and we
could argue that anythhg that distracts from this is unhelpful.
The languageused for questions (especiallywritten ones, where your voice and, if
necessary, extra explanation, are not available), should be as clear as yowcan make it
At the very least, it ought not to be more djfEicult than the language of the tekt itself. If
you find this impossible, there are two other solutionsto explore.
The first of these is to ask some questions in the L1.You should consider this only E
the alternative is to ask questions you do not want to ask, simply because they are
within the linguistic competenceof the students. This is not a decisionto take Lightly,
but it could certainly improve the quality of questionsasked.
The second solutionto the problem of difficult language in questiohs is to explore
.
completely different approaches,which we discuss in the next chapter.

Types of question: what are we to ask about?

It is also possible to classifg questions accordingto the skills they require from the ,
reader; for the reading teacher, this is much more importantthan their grammati'cdl
form. The classification presented here is intended as a checklist; by checkingyour .
questionsagainst it, you canfind out whether you are omitting any importanttypes
of question, and thus failingto give practice in some important skills.

Chapter 11 Questioning

The questioner

Type 1 Questions of literal comprehension

Such questions can often be tackled by fairly elementary students (using.a largely topdown approach), but they can also demand advanced skills, since they askthe reader to analyse his response to the text and discover objective reasons to justify it, as well
as measuring it against the presumed intention of the writer. Questions of literary
appreciation are the most sophisticated representatives of this type.

-.--. These are questions whose answers are directly and explicitly expressed in the text.

-..S

They can often be answered in the words of the text (thoughmost teachers would not
wish this to happen).
Such questions are often a preliminary to serious work on a text, because more
sophisticated exercises tend to depend onthe students having first understood the
plain sense. Literal questions on AppendixA Text 2 might include these:

Type 5 Questions of personal response

Of all the types, the answers to these dependleast on the writer. The reader is not
asked to assess the techniques by means of which the writer influences him (that is
Type 4), but simply to record his reaction to the text. This might range from 'I'm
convinced' or 'I'm not interested' to 'I'm moved' or 'I'm not prepared to accept the
position the writer expects me to adopt.'

1 When did Leila-have an accident?

2 What was Yusof doing when the accident happened?
3 Why didn't Yusof help his mother?

Type 2 Questions involving reorganization or reinterprefation

slightly more difficult than Type 1are questions which require the student either to
reinterpret literal information or to .obtain it from various parts of the text and put it
together in a new way, perhaps using elementary inferencing. Often both sk.ills are
needed; the distinction between them is not worth labouring.

Nevertheless, such responses cannot ignore the textual evidence; they do not rely
only on the reader, but involve him with the writer. So the response must at least be
. based on adequate understanding of the text and ideally students &e able to explain
why it makes them feelas they do. These questions thus overlap with Type 4.
'

The category includes questions such as 'What is your opinion of X's behaviour?'
'Would you like to live in Y?''How would you have felt if you were Z?' Personal
response is naturally most often invoked by creative writing, but can be appropriate
to other kinds of writing too, for example: 'What does the writer contribute to our
understanding of this field?' 'Do you sympathize with the writer'> arguments? Wow
far does your own experience agree with that described?

Such questions make the student consider the text as a whole, rather than sentence by
sentence; and/or make him process the information in the text for fuller
understanding. Examples for ~ ~ ~ e nAd~ ie xx2:t
1 How old was Yusof? (Reinterpret third birthday, the week before)
2 How many children had Rahman? (Reorganize: 1(YusoA +2 (both the other

children) = 3)

Type 6 Questions concerned with how writers say what they mean

3 Was Yusof playing in the kitchen? (Reinterpret ran to the kitchen)

Type 3 Questions of inference

These questions oblige the students to consider what is implied but not explicitly
stated. Like Type 2, they may require the reader to put together pieces of information
that are scattered throughout the text; the two types are not always distinct, but the
inferences demanded i n Type 3 are more sophisticated.
Type 3 questions are more M c u l t (intellectually rather thanljnguistically) than .
Types 1or 2, because the reader has to undersfand the text well enough to work out its
implications. Examples for Appendix A Text 2:
1 Which people were in Rahman's house when the accident happened?
2 Why was Rahmanproud of his son?

Examples for Appendix A Text 3:

1 What Merences would you find between trees in Dorset and trees near

Birmingham?
2 What hypothesis is confirmed by D r Kettlewell's experiment in Dorset?

The types of question we have looked at so far all have as their main concern what the
writer says (or, in the case of Type 5, how the reader reacts). Another type of question,
much in use now, has as its main concern how the writer says what she means. This
kind of question (even more thanthe others) is intended to give students strategies for
han-g
texts in general, rather than simply helping them to understand one
particular text. It is aimed at making students aware of word-attack and text-attack
skills, ie making them conscious of what they do when they interpret text. As we have
seen in previous chapters, these questions need not be particularly difficdt to
answer, but they are sometimes difficult to devise ifthe text is not reasonably
authentic. Plenty of exmples were offered in Chapters 6 and 7.
Categorizing questions in this way may be helpful for evaluating questions in
textbooks, and for developingyour own. Questions in older textbooks tend to be of
Type 1,with perhaps a few Types 2 and 5. Of course literal comprehension and
personalresponse are important, but it is Types 2,3,4 and 6 that ought to concern us, -,
since it is these that force readers to thinknot just about what the writer has written,
but how and why she has written it, thus equipping themselves to tackle further and
more difficult texts.
,

Type 4 Questions of evajuation

"-

Evaluative questions ask for a considered judgement about the text In terms of what
the writer is trying to do and how far she has achieved it The reader may be asked to
judge, for example, the writer's hones@ or bias (eg in newspaper reporting or
- advertisements), the force of her argument (eg quality of evidence), or the
effectiveness of her narrative power (eg in a novel).

The questioner
Traditionally, it is the teacher who asks the questions and the student who replies. .
(That is one reason why many students are not very good at forming questions.) But
we have seen that readers have to learn to 'interrogate the text'. The teacher's -

Assessing questions

Chap~er
11 Questioning

questions can of course force them to do this, but they ought also to try doing it for
themselves-As you know from your own experience, having to ask questions on a text
is a very good way to ensure that you read it carefully!
It is not necessary to wait for the class to reach an advancedlevel; even elementary
students are able to ask some kinds of questions, and iftheir intelligence is greater
than their language proficiency, they may ask very challenging ones. (They might
need your help in formulating them, or you could allow them to use the Ll.)
You can give ,guidelines (eg asking for particular types of question. or questions to
clarify a particular dBiculty) and the activiQ can lead to groups or individuals
putting their questions to one another, perhaps as a competition, and to evaluation of
the questions by the other students.

Activity 11.1
I

I.

'

.f

$:;

f
!l

2 g.
- ,

Assessing questions

..

5
6

The answer should be WO'! It is surprising how often it turns out to be 'Yes',
especially when MCQs are concerned. Have a look at the examples of
unsatisfactory questions in Activity 11.1below: why is it possible to answer them
without having seenthe text?
Are there several questions on every part of the text?
This is not a principle to be maintained at all costs, but it is unusual to find part of
a text that is not worth any attention.
Are there enough questions?
We have seen that textbooks rarely offer anythinglike enough questions, but that
many of the extra ones should be dealt with orally and geared to the mculties
that arise in class.
Are the questions varied i n type?
Often we ask a lot of Type l questions first, followed by questions of Types 2 and 3,
perhaps Types 4 and 6 and finally Tme 5. But this sequence can be varied: for
instance, you might start with Tgpe 5 and then go back to the text to find out what
has producedthe response.
Do some questions try to make students aware of the strategies a reader needs?
This is to remind you to include some Type 6 questions even at elementary levels.
Do the questions attempt to help students to understand?
Or are they intended simply to test? This is to remind you that more of our time
should be devoted to teaching than to testing; however, thisis more a matter of
lesson procedures than question design.
Are the questions written in language that is more dimcult than the text?
We hope for the answer 'No'. Do the answers require language that is beyond the students'profiiency ?
Again, we hope for the answer 'No'.
'

Tailpiece: unsatisfactory questions

The examples in Activity 11.1are closely based (believe it or not) on questions from
actual textbooks. Working out the right answer without the text may help you to
avoid sjmilar mistakes.

Study the following examples of q~estionsand try to establish the correct answers even though you do not have the texts to which they refer. In each case, try to decide
what is wrong with the question.
1 Daniel's father considered him a model son, although
a he was not old enough to be.interested in girls.
b he was a very fine footballer.
c his disobediencewas extremely worrying.
d at his age many sons are very troublesome.
2 The murderer took the woman's corpse into the forest because
a he didnot want to hurt her any more.
b he wanted her to be comfortable.
c he did not want anyone to find her.
d he needed her car.
3 Re-attaching severed limbs by microsurgery is

Here is a check list to use when you assess questions.

1 Can the questions he answered without reading the text?

Unsatisfactory questions

a never attempted.
b a very skilled task.
c always successful.

,*.
t

d simple.
4

People use mousetraps because

a mice run about in the house.
b mice are very old.
c mice do a lot of damage.
d mice like cheese.

5 World War II.began in

a
b
c
d

1945.
1940.

1914.
1939.

6 The word allege in line 10 means

a claim
b agree

c request
d refuse

Further reading
Various types of question are distinguished, for instance, by Barrett (n-d.)
(impublished, but see eg Beard 1990).See also Davies and Widdowson 1974,
Widdowson 1978, Williams 1984.
Munby 1968demonstrates how to use questions to promote discussion.