Constructing Exams In constructing exam questions, do you focus on the content and construct a realistic setting for the questions or do you start with a real problem and try to match the course content? In other words, how much do you strive to use real data as opposed to hypothetical or realistic data in the exam questions?

In constructing the exam, how do you decide how many points a question should be worth? What percentage of the points on the exam would you say are for primarily conceptual knowledge/interpretation vs. calculation/mechanics?

I always set up a series of learning objectives first, and then design my questions to test those learning objectives. I always provide some sort of real/relevant scenario for every exam question, because I believe you should never ask a student to do something without a good reason (for example: calculate the mean, median, etc. without a reason). I don't care so much if the data are "real" in the sense that it was an actual data set. I just care mostly that it is a relevant scenario for the students, always. My exams are probably 75% conceptual, and 25% computational (always embedding the computations within the concept questions, always within a relevant scenario). On a 100 pt exam, I typically have 6-7 questions with 4-5 parts each, and each part is usually worth around 4-5 pts. Sometimes larger problems are worth 10 points, but not very often. They are usually broken into smaller parts that build up. I like to have bigger problem solving opportunities, without scaffolding, but I don't typically use exam time for that.

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