Assessment in Education Without Purpose Misses the Point
Every question you write for a quiz, test, or worksheet should exist for a reason. Not because the page looked empty. Not because it “sounds hard.” And definitely not just to hit a question count.
If your goal is to measure whether a student understands something, your question has to be built for that. One clear goal. One clean test of what they know. Otherwise, you’re just creating busy work. Or worse, you’re measuring the wrong thing.
An unclear question doesn’t just fail—it confuses, frustrates, and wastes time. One bad question can undo an entire lesson.
Confusion Is Expensive—for Everyone
Bad questions cost more than people think. A poorly worded assessment item doesn’t just mess with the data. It affects how students feel about the subject. It chips away at confidence. It creates stress in the classroom. It can even lead teachers to re-teach topics students already understood—just because the test didn’t make sense.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 31% of eighth-grade students were rated proficient in math in 2022. One reason? Assessment quality. When questions aren’t built clearly or intentionally, it skews what we think students do or don’t know.
If the purpose of a question is fuzzy, the answers won’t tell you anything real.
What Happens When Questions Don’t Get Tested
Most classroom and textbook questions go live without any sort of test run. No one tries them on students first. No one checks if they’re interpreted the right way. They get written, edited for grammar, and sent to print.
That’s a problem. Because when something reads clearly to a teacher, it might read completely differently to a student.
Tracey Biscontini, a longtime editor and founder of Northeast Editing, said it best: “Sometimes we’re the last eyes on a piece before a child sees it. That’s not just editing. That’s responsibility.”
She once had a writer submit a question asking which character showed the most empathy. But the story barely defined empathy. “The question was well-written,” she said, “but it tested a concept the passage didn’t explain.”
That’s the problem. You can’t know what a question is really doing until you run it like a user test.
What a Good Assessment Item Actually Does
A good assessment question does three things:
- It checks one thing at a time.
- It matches the skill or concept just taught.
- It makes sense to the student—without extra noise.
Sounds simple. But most questions fail at least one of these.
Some sneak in two ideas. (Compare AND contrast. Identify AND explain.)
Some go off-topic. (The lesson was about ecosystems, but the question’s about weather.)
Some try to sound academic and end up confusing. (“Determine the inferential meaning of the author’s implied tone.”)
If you can’t read your own question out loud without pausing, it’s not ready.
Real-Life Testing: The Gold Standard
Test your questions on a real person—before real stakes are attached.
Not a teacher. Not another writer. A student. Or someone unfamiliar with the topic.
Watch them answer it. See where they pause. Ask them what they think the question is asking. You’ll learn fast whether it’s doing its job.
If they don’t understand the question, they’re not “bad at reading.” The question is bad at asking.
How to Build Questions That Actually Work
You don’t need a PhD in assessment design. You just need a little discipline.
1. Write With One Goal
Know what you’re testing before you start. Write it down in one sentence. Now write a question that only measures that one thing.
2. Use Simple Language
Don’t test vocabulary unless the standard is vocabulary. Keep sentences short. Use common words. Say what you mean.
3. Remove Redundancy
Delete every extra word. Shorter questions test thinking, not patience.
4. Read It Out Loud
Seriously. You’ll hear every problem you didn’t see. If you trip over your own sentence, fix it.
5. Try It on a Test Reader
Hand the question to someone who hasn’t seen the lesson. Ask what they think it’s asking. If they’re wrong, you probably are too.
Stats That Show the Impact
- 72% of teachers report that poorly designed assessments cause frustration for students and lead to inaccurate grading decisions (EdWeek Research Center)
- In a survey by Learning Counsel, 48% of middle school students said unclear questions were one of the biggest reasons they struggled with tests
- One study found that reducing question complexity by just one reading level improved accuracy by 21% in fourth-grade math assessments (Education Northwest)
Better Questions Mean Better Learning
Every question on a test is a choice. You can choose to test understanding—or to test endurance. You can make students think—or make them guess.
But if you don’t give every question a clear purpose, and you don’t test it before using it, you’re just rolling the dice.
The most effective assessments aren’t the longest, the hardest, or the fanciest.
They’re the clearest.
So give each question a job. Make sure it does that job. And make sure it makes sense to the person it’s written for.
You’ll get better answers. More useful data. And a better experience for everyone.
That’s a test worth running.