Exam Writing Process Describe the PROCESS that you use to write an exam from scratch. For example, how do you get started? What steps do you go through? Do you have another instructor review your questions? How do you decide if the exam is reasonable timewise? Also, after you have given an exam, how do you decide for yourself if it was a good exam?

I start by reviewing the content I want to cover and look through other question sources to get the juices flowing (see answer to constructing exams as well). I try to start a few days ahead of time so I have time to put it aside and then look at it again with a fresh perspective the next day. Often I will look through the week's news to find an interesting context. Once I have a tentative exam, I do show it to another faculty member to check for coverage and level of difficulty. I also advocate showing it to a TA to check for reasonableness and clarity. I'm fortunate to have a colleague who will review my exam after each of many revisions. I also time how long it takes me to take the exam (reading the questions and writing complete solutions) and multiply by 5 or 6 to see if that is close to the time allotment the students will have or if I should reduce the number of questions. I decide if the exam is reasonable by considering the point distribution and I even try to think a bit about the useful of each question (how much did I learn about the students). As I am grading the exam I make notes to myself on ways to change the question/grading the next time around.