Part III: Permissible Changes to Question Templates

As each subtopic has its own types of question templates and progression in difficulty levels, it is best to focus on one subtopic at a time while writing questions. 

Before beginning to write new questions, it is essential to read through all the question templates for a subtopic and analyse the progression in the subtopic’s difficulty levels. 

In many subtopics, the progression in difficulty levels is linked mainly to the introduction of new grammatical constructs. For example, in Punctuation, the progression is relatively easy to track:

Level 1          Slashes

Level 2          Brackets – additional information

Level 3          Brackets – interruptions to flow of thought or discussion

Level 4          Ellipsis – pauses and hesitation

Level 5          Ellipsis – omissions

Level 6          Square brackets

However, in Commas, the progression is not as obvious and must be analysed on a step-by-step basis:

Level 1          Commas after ‘yes’, ‘no’ and names

Level 2          Commas in lists

                     Commas between main (independent) clauses

                     Commas after introductory words, phrases and clauses

                     Commas before question tags

Level 3          One missing comma in sentences with and without direct speech   
                     testing all subjects in Levels 1 and 2

Level 4         Two missing commas in sentences with and without direct speech

                    A comma and coordinating conjunction to join to separate sentences

                    A comma and coordinating conjunction to correct a run-on sentence

Level 5         Three/four missing commas in sentences with and without direct speech

                    Commas between coordinating adjectives

                    Commas to pick out appositive clauses

                    Commas to avoid repetitions of words

Level 6         Four/five missing commas in sentences with and without direct speech

                    Commas to avoid repetitions of words in sentences with semicolons

Please note: As a rule of thumb,  new questions are most efficiently generated from question templates by retaining the template and changing only the task sentences and multiple choice options. 

Subject-specific keywords and definitions in instruction sentences and explanations, along with the terminology listed in Part IV, should not be changed. 

***Inevitably, a few question templates will have typographical or grammatical errors. Writers should notify our project manager as soon as they spot an error and proceed to work on other question templates until the project manager provides a correction.