daijobu Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 My dd 14 is just about finished reading Ancient Greece by Thomas Martin. I've been having her answer discussion questions chapter by chapter, section by section as we slowly make our way through the text. Now she is asking me to prepare an exam covering the important material in this book, and I have no idea how to proceed. I've somehow slinked by in 9 years of homeschooling without writing a single test. What should I do? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 The best tests I took in high school history (IB History of the Americas) went like this: 1 week before the test, the teacher gave us 4 possible essay questions, based on the material from the section. They didn't all cover all of the material; each was pretty specific. Then on the day of the test he'd pull two of the questions out of a hat. We had an hour to write an essay on one question. This meant we had to prepare 3 of the questions- I wrote an outline for each, then memorized the basics of the outline (they were critical thinking questions, generally, so the info was not hard to remember as long as I had the basics committed to memory because I had to create the info in the first place, if that makes sense). Then he graded the essays on a typical IB scale. This happened I'd say one every month or so? Maybe once every 6 weeks? Then at the end of the course we took the actual IB test, which was just a larger-scale version of those tests - more breadth of topics to cover (so you had to prepare more) but also topics with broader interpretative possibilities (could be answered using info from a variety of parts of the course). Also 2+ hours to answer, I think. Anyway I think it is a great way to test understanding. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starr Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Some of us have been known to go longer than that without making up a test. :leaving: Discuss, write papers and save the tests for an online or college class. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 I'd probably select a question from each chapter, and then have a couple of "essay" questions and let her choose one to write a short essay (3-4 paragraphs). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmrich Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Take important questions from each review section to make a test. Hopefully they will be a mix of short answer (who, did what, when etc..), questions that should be answered in a sentence or two, and then an essay question that covers more than one chapter, ideally covering the scope of the text. For my younger students I include a word bank, or a matching section for the people and dates sections. I also tell them ahead of time which dates to study and then some of them on the test. Every once in a while I let them have a 3 by 5 notecard as a 'cheat sheet.' I have found out that just the act of making the 'cheat sheet' is one of the greatest study tools for my students. Most kids say they do not have to use the 'cheet sheet' during the test because they already know what is on it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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