Writing Effective Quizzes and Tests

Quizzes and tests are among the most common tools in L&D—but most aren’t designed to truly assess whether learning has occurred. Poorly written questions can confuse learners, measure the wrong things, or give a false sense of competence. Good ones do the opposite: they clarify expectations, reinforce learning, and provide valid evidence of capability.

This session teaches practical strategies for writing clear, accurate, and purpose-driven quiz and test questions for workplace learning. You’ll learn how to avoid common writing pitfalls, select the right question formats for your objectives, and design assessments that align with the real skills and decisions learners need to demonstrate. Whether you’re creating a knowledge check or a scored exam, this session will help you write better questions—faster, and with greater confidence.

Ideal for instructional designers, facilitators, and anyone responsible for learning evaluation, this session will sharpen your ability to design assessments that are fair, effective, and instructionally meaningful.

Your people will learn how to:

• Choose the right question format for what you want to assess—recall, analysis, judgment, or procedural knowledge
• Write clear, unambiguous questions that reflect real-world performance and avoid trickery or confusion
• Avoid common errors in quiz design, such as implausible distractors, double-barreled questions, and excessive complexity
• Use multiple-choice questions effectively (and ethically), so they assess more than rote memorization
• Construct performance-based items (e.g., scenarios, case-based questions) that reflect the decisions learners must make on the job
• Review and revise existing questions to improve fairness, clarity, and alignment with learning objectives
• Ensure consistency and integrity across different assessment types and formats, whether formative or summative