Make-a-Test/Take-a-Test Lesson Activity

This Make-a-Test/Take-a-Test lesson guides students through reading and reviewing material to create a student-generated test in order to study, practice test-taking, and even offer authentic test questions for the Teacher. This lesson offers a reading piece, a writing piece, and even a vocabulary piece for studying for quizzes or tests. Students will work to create a test based on class reading material (texts, notes, etc.), then switch tests with another group to “take the test” from someone else. This includes a four-page packet for students to record their questions, as well as a two-page Answer Sheet on which to record the correct answers for future correcting. Question types include sentence completion, true/false questions, multiple choice questions, and a diagram identification section where students draw a diagram and label the corresponding parts.

This Make-a-Test activity provides for assigning, maintaining, and evaluating student reading and writing, and I have included Teacher Notes that explain how to set up and guide this lesson. This is an especially productive assignment for substitute teachers or student leaders teaching a class. Grading for this activity follows a 100%-point system, and point values are recorded directly on the Make-a-Test form for each question. An additional grade or extra credit can be given to the Test-takers.

This lesson is designed for middle school Grades 5-8, but I have also used it at the high school level, and it can also be used for homeschooling and Adult Education courses as well.

These activities are scaffolded and differentiated: Teacher determines expectations, whether students work individually or within a group, and teacher determines group members or whether to let students form their own groups. Students have choice regarding question choice. Groups can be leveled according to student ability or heterogeneously. I have also paired up a high learner with a low learner and experience great results. Groups can also each work on a portion of the unit to complete a whole if so desired.

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