“Tell me the story in your own words.” “Were your guesses right?”
“What surprised you the most in the story?” “What did you like best about the story? Why?”
“Who was your favorite character? Why?” “How would you change the ending?”
5. Guidelines for Preparing Questions
Burns 1990: 203 suggests some guidelines in preparing questions. They are:
1. When trying to determine overall comprehension skills, ask a variety of questions designed to reflect different types of comprehension. Avoid
overloading the skill evaluation with a single type of question. 2. Don’t ask questions about insignificant portion of the selection. Such
questions may make a test harder, but they do not convey realistic data about comprehension.
3. Avoid ambiguous or tricky questions. If a question has two or more possible interpretations, more than one answer for it has to be acceptable.
4. Questions that a person who has not read the material can answer correctly over you no valuable information about comprehension. Avoid useless
questions. 5. Don’t ask questions in language that is more difficult than the language of the
selection the question is about. Sometimes you can word questions so as to prevent a child who knows the answer from responding appropriately.
6. Make sure the answers to sequence questions require knowledge of the order of event. Don’t confuse questions that simply ask for lists with sequence
questions. 7.
Don’t ask for unsupported opinions when testing for comprehension. Have students give support for their opinion, by asking “why do you think that?”,
“what in the story made you think that?” 8. Don’t ask for opinions, if you want facts. Ask for the type of information you
want to receive. 9. Avoid questions that give away information. Instead of saying “what makes
you believe that the boy was angry?” say “How do you think the boy felt?
Why?” Questions may lead students to the answers by supplying too much
information. 10. If a question can be answered with a yes or no, or if a choice of answer is
offered, the student has a chance to answer the questions correctly without having to read the selection at all. Avoid questions that offer choices.
Related to the questions that will be given, Clark and Starr 1970: 218 propose four criteria of good questions. They are:
1. A successful question asks something definite in simple, clear, straightforward English that the students can understand.
2. The good question gets at a definite point consistent with a goal of the lesson 3. The good question is challenging and thought-provoking.
4. The good question is adapted to the age, abilities and interests of the students to whom it is addressed.
In making the questions, the students should be allowed to make mistakes without feeling fear or embarrassed but they should not be encouraged to do the
careless work. In addition, to prevent of being bored, the teacher should be more creative and flexible in using certain technique.
C. Rationale.
