Series (1 of n): Using practice exams effectively

Part of the current book project I am doing involves writing practice questions. In doing this I have put a lot of thought into the topic and wanted to share some of that here.

First, just to get the controversial part out of the way, I believe in practice questions. They are ethical and it is fair to try to get them as close to the real thing as possible, at least in terms of scope, style, and difficulty level of the real test. That is my opinion and other instructors might disagree.

A risk of providing practice exams is realized if the student can subconsciously understand them to mean "The instructor is essentially taking this test for me, if I do what these questions say and I will pass." I say subconsciously because I have never heard a student actually say this out loud, but I can tell by the way they ask questions about the exam and their general preparation habits when this perception is taking hold. This is the source of the understandable criticism of practice tests, but it can be managed and handled correctly.

As I write the questions for the book, I am placing in some controls. In the interest of security-open-source-minded full disclosure I don't mind explaining them. The best cryptosystems are well known and understood, but are still hard to solve. That is the good model for practice exams as well. Along the way, discussions about real exams are likely to be brought up as well.

To keep the blog postings reasonable in size, I will address specific topics of practice exams, and how to get the most out of them over the course of several postings. In case you are working on some right now start with this thought:

“Practice exams are extensions of lab, lecture and other learning modes. Not replacements for them, and not shortcuts to avoid them.”