understanding assessment questions

Before you start searching for information for an assessment it is important to fully understand the question that is being asked, this is often called Topic Analysis.

Generally speaking, there are three parts to an assessment question:

• Instructional terms
  • This will tell you how to approach the assessment. Is the assessment asking you to define, research, construct, design, etc?
• Key concept terms
  • This is the main focus or the topic you need to understand to be able to complete the assessment
• Qualifying terms
  • This (or these) term will narrow down your point of research from the key concept term. This will be a geographic location, time frame, specific size, etc