Most exam questions fall into types. If you can recognize them, you will know how to organize and begin to write.

The cause and effect question asks for causes, effects, or both.

What were the immediate causes of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s?

Describe the main economic effects of a low prime interest rate.

The compare or contrast question asks you to point out similarities (compare), differences (contrast), or both. Directions to show similarities or identify likenesses ask for comparisons, while those to distinguish, differentiate, or show differences ask for contrasts, perhaps to evaluate in what respects one thing is better than the other. You explain not one subject but two, paralleling your points and giving both equal space.

Compare and contrast iconic memory and eidetic imagery, defining the terms and indicating how they differ and are related or alike.

After supplying a one-sentence definition of each term, a student proceeded first to contrast and then to compare, for full credit.

Iconic memory is a picturelike impression that lasts for only a fraction of a second in short-term memory. Eidetic imagery is the ability to take a mental photograph, exact in detail, as though its subject were still present. But iconic memory soon disappears. Unlike an eidetic image, it does not last long enough to enter long-term memory. IM is common; EI is unusual: very few people have it. Iconic memory and eidetic imagery are similar, however: both record visual images, and every sighted person of normal intelligence has both abilities to some degree.

The definition question requests explanation in many forms, short and extended.

Explain three common approaches to parenting — permissive, authoritarian-restrictive, and authoritative. [Supply a trio of definitions.]

Define the Stanislavsky method of acting, citing outstanding actors who followed it. [Explain a single method and give examples.]

The demonstration question asks you to back up a statement.

Demonstrate the truth of Freud’s contention that laughter may contain elements of aggression. [Explain Freud’s claim and supply evidence to support it, maybe crowd scenes, a joke, or examples from reading.]

The discussion question isn’t an invitation to ramble.

Discuss three events that precipitated Lyndon B. Johnson’s withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race.

Try rewording the question to help you focus your discussion.

Why did President Johnson decide not to seek another term? Analyze and briefly explain three causes.

A discussion question may announce itself with describe, explain, or explore.

Describe the national experience following passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. What did most Americans learn from it?

Provided you know that this amendment banned the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic drinks and that it was finally repealed, you can discuss its effects — or perhaps the reasons for its repeal.

The divide or classify question asks you to slice a subject into sections, sort things into kinds, or break the idea, person, or process into parts.

Identify the ways in which each resident of the United States uses, on average, 1,595 gallons of water a day. How and to what degree might a person reduce this amount?

First, divide up water uses — drinking, cooking, bathing, washing cars, and so on. Then give tips for conservation and tell how effective each is.

What different genres of film did Robert Altman direct? Name at least one outstanding example of each kind.

Sort films into categories — possibly comedy, war, drama, mystery, western — and give examples.

The evaluation question asks you to think critically and present a judgment based on criteria.

Evaluate this idea, giving reasons for your judgments: cities should stop building highways to the suburbs and instead build public lightrail.

Other argument questions might begin “Defend the idea of …” or “Show weaknesses in the concept of …” or otherwise call on you to take a stand.

The process analysis question often begins with trace.

Trace the stages through which a bill becomes a state law.

Trace the development of the medieval Italian city-state.

Both questions ask you to tell how something occurs or occurred, dividing the process into steps and detailing each step. The next question calls for the other type of process analysis, the “how-to” variety:

An employee, late for work daily by fifteen to thirty minutes, has been on the job only five months but shows promise of learning skills that your firm needs badly. How would you deal with this situation?

The response question might supply a statement, a comment, or a quotation, asking you to test the writer’s opinion against what you know. Carefully read the statement, and jot down contrary or supporting evidence.

Was the following passage written by Gertrude Stein, Kate Chopin, or Tillie Olsen? On what evidence do you base your answer?

She waited for the material pictures which she thought would gather and blaze before her imagination. She waited in vain. She saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair. But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her.

If you were familiar with the stories of Kate Chopin, who specializes in physical and emotional descriptions of impassioned women, you would point to language (swaying, lashing) that marks the passage as hers.