Exam prep
How to write practice questions that predict the real exam
Most self-made questions are too easy because you write them while looking at the answer. Six question patterns examiners actually use, and how to build a question bank from a chapter in 20 minutes.
9 min readUpdated
Writing your own questions is the cheapest way to turn notes into revision, and the easiest thing to do badly. The usual failure is predictable: you write the question with the answer in front of you, so you unconsciously use the same words the notes use, and the question tests whether you can match a phrase rather than whether you understand anything.
This guide is about writing questions that behave like the real paper.
Rule one: write the question, then leave
Draft your questions in one sitting and answer them in another — the next day, ideally. If you answer them immediately you are testing short-term memory, and you will not notice that a question is only answerable by someone who just read the source.
A second, harsher test: hand a question to someone in your course who has not read your notes. If they can't tell what is being asked, it's underspecified. If they can answer it from general knowledge, it isn't testing the material.
Rule two: cover the six patterns, not just the first
Almost every exam question is one of six shapes. Notes revision naturally produces only the first, which is why self-testing often feels easy and the exam doesn't.
1. Define / state. "State the second law of thermodynamics." Low marks, fast, and the only pattern most people write. Cap these at a quarter of your bank.
2. Explain why / mechanism. "Explain why metals conduct electricity." This is the workhorse of mid-tier marks. Convert every causal sentence in your notes into one of these: if the notes say X happens because Y, the question is "Why does X happen?"
3. Compare / distinguish. "Distinguish between mitosis and meiosis." Any time your notes contain two similar-looking things, an examiner can ask you to separate them — and similar-looking things are exactly what you'll confuse under pressure.
4. Apply to a new case. "A company's revenue rises while its margin falls. Explain two possible causes." The material is in the notes; the scenario isn't. These are the questions that separate grades, and the ones you cannot write by copying a sentence.
5. Calculate / derive. Give yourself numbers that don't come out round. Real papers rarely do, and rounding errors are where marks vanish.
6. Evaluate / argue. "To what extent was the treaty responsible for the collapse?" Marks come from structure and a defended judgement, not from listing facts. If your subject has these, practise them most — they are the hardest to improvise.
Rule three: write the mark scheme at the same time
An answer you grade generously is worse than no practice. Before you leave the question, write the marks: one line per point, with the specific term or step required.
Q: Explain why a rise in interest rates can slow inflation. (4)
- Borrowing becomes more expensive (1)
- Households and firms cut spending / investment (1)
- Aggregate demand falls (1)
- Firms face less pressure to raise prices → inflation slows (1)
Common loss: describing the mechanism without naming aggregate demand.
That last line is the valuable one. After a week of practice, the "common loss" notes become a list of your personal failure modes, which is far more useful than a percentage score.
A 20-minute method for one chapter
- Minutes 0–5. Skim the chapter and write down every heading and bolded term. Don't read the body text.
- Minutes 5–12. Turn each heading into two questions: one state, one explain why. Turn each pair of similar terms into a distinguish.
- Minutes 12–17. Write two apply questions by inventing a scenario the chapter never mentions — a different country, a different organism, a different dataset.
- Minutes 17–20. Write the mark schemes. Short bullets, required terms only.
That yields roughly 15–20 questions from a chapter, weighted the way an exam weights them. Do it for every chapter as you finish it and you arrive at revision season with a paper's worth of questions per topic and nothing to write under time pressure.
Grading yourself honestly
Score against your mark scheme, not against your feeling. Three categories are enough:
- Got it — full marks without hesitation. Don't revisit for a fortnight.
- Nearly — right idea, missed a required term or a step. These are your highest-value fixes; they are cheap marks.
- No — could not start. Content gap; go back to the source, then rewrite the question in your own words a day later.
Track only the nearly and no piles. A revision session spent re-answering questions you already got right feels productive and teaches you nothing.
Timing, once the bank exists
Two weeks out, start answering in exam conditions: no notes, a clock, roughly one minute per mark. Untimed practice hides the failure that costs most students the most marks — running out of time and leaving a whole question blank, which is the one mistake no amount of subject knowledge compensates for.
Where StudyFlow fits
StudyFlow generates practice tests and full exams from your own notes and grades your written answers against the material, which handles the mechanical part — producing questions in the six patterns above and marking them consistently. Two honest caveats. Generated questions are only as good as the notes you upload: thin notes produce thin questions, and no generator knows your examiner's house style, so your past papers remain the source of truth for format and wording. And writing a handful of your own questions by hand is itself a study activity — the thinking you do inventing an apply question is most of the value. Use generation for volume and marking; keep writing a few yourself.