Title: Studying for Tests at Different Levels
Course: RITA LEARNING MODULES

Look at the test question presented in the orange box. Look at a student's study notes beneath the test question.

Can you answer the test question easily using the student's notes? Why?

There are different "Levels" of learning - also called "Intellectual Behaviors."  The study notes are written at the "Know" level. Is the test question written at the same level as the study notes, or is it higher or lower?

Do you think this happens to you when studying? How can we fix this?

STUDY AT HIGHER LEVELS than suggested by the instructor. Dissect topics, compare and contrast, find relationships, reach judgements about what we are learning.

Try this: Take a book from any course or any non-fiction, academic book from a library. Select a topic. Imagine your instructor asked you to write a quiz about the topic. On a separate paper or your computer, write one question at each of the Intellectual Behavior levels. Questions can be presented as a multiple choice, short answer, or essay question. See the chart below for more information, or read about Benjamin Bloom and Bloom's Revised Taxonomy though a fun interactive page.

Levels | Your questions
KNOW |
UNDERSTAND |
APPLY |
ANALYZE |
EVALUATE |
CREATE |

The image below shows more detailed descriptions of each level and the VERBS (intellectual skills and behaviors) educators usually use to state learning tasks or objectives. You can use these verbs to help you write your questions above. You will note that certain verbs appear in more than one level. How do we know at what level they are? It depends on the intellectual demand of the task.