Generating Questions
for Review games

In order to play a Review Game, you need questions! Depending on the game, you may need a lot of questions. Where will all of those questions come from? Creating a body of questions for review can be a potentially time consuming process. This page will aid in creating review questions in a way that helps the students' learning and reduces the instructor’s preparation for playing such games.

The following assumes you are playing Academic Baseball from Positive Classroom Discipline by JoLynne Talbott Jones and Fredric H. Jones Ph.D. The process can be generalized for any review game.

Distribute topics to be covered for the exam among the students. For example, for a test in Calculus 1, the topics may be Power Rule, Chain Rule, Quotient Rule, and Product Rule. If possible assign several students the same topic. Once the students know their respective topics, give the following assignment to the students:

1. Write a single, double, triple, and home run question on your topic. Make your single question fairly easy, but not too easy. Remember, the other team may be asked your question. And, be careful how difficult the home run question is since your team might get it.
2. Write the answers to the questions on the same piece of paper in the space below the question. Be sure the answer is clear and readable.
3. Finally, at the bottom of the page write the page, reference for your question. If there is any controversy, we can look up the answer.
4. Therefore, you will write four questions and four answers with page references.

This can be assigned as homework or as a thirty minute review in class. When given within class, students who finish the assignment early may write additional questions on other topics.

To these questions, the teacher can, of course, add more questions. In the end, you have all that (and probably more than) you need for a review game. So begin playing and reviewing with your class!