Art of Asking Good Questions
FullRecall databases are driven by questions. Questions don't have to be questions grammatically, but they always try to bring up an information from memory.
Good questions minimize time spend on reviews, build up interest; along with answers, they form long-lasting memory traces, and make learning with FullRecall enjoyable.
- Questions and answers should be as short, simple, clear-cut and unambiguous as possible.
- Question generally shouldn't ask to enumerate many answers if possible: usually it's better to have several separate items, than one item that ask to enumerate several answers.
- Answer, in most cases (but not all), should be just one word (but can have additional info/reference/note that isn't needed to remember in order to achieve a good grade).
- The more difficult an item is, the more it's worth to spend time on making the item better.
This is not a black or white: no question is entirely good or bad. You may find that a deviation from these rules (in case of your specific database, or personal habits, or specific items) is desirable; but for most people, most of the time, the tips covered here should point in a good direction.
Examples
A poor item:
Improved:
Changes: The cloze string ("{?}") should not be used at the beginning of question; in fact, ideally, it should not be used at all, except for quickly making provisional items that will be rewritten later, or items that are so easy to remember that it doesn't pay to spend time making them better.
Improved:
Changes: Question now explicitly asks for the information to recollect. Answer has the Celsius sign.
Rationale: If possible, it's better when question explicitly asks for the information to recollect. Celsius sign in answer doesn't make answer much longer, yet helps associate (esp. in visual memory) that the number is on the Celsius scale.
Improved:
Rationale: the improved answer helps to associate in visual memory that 1hp = 750W.
Improved:
Changes: Question changed into explicit question.
Rationale: This change doesn't buy much as the original version with three dots wasn't bad, but it's still a bit better when there is an explicit question.
Comment: This is an example of bad question (with one exception: if it's in a category named like "Polish→English" and you have turned on "Prepend question with category name" option);
it should be clear what it asks for; and the hint that it pertains to mathematics should be in the question, not in the answer.
Improved:
Or, if you use a consistent shortcut (like "en2pl") to mark items that ask to translate a word from one language to another:
... or use a different background color for every category.
The question here was made using auto-clipboard-grab-mode, or "Make it answer" option under right mouse button menu, without any further refinement that seems to be worth doing here.
Improved:
Comment: We made question shorter and focused on the most important thing. This item is better off with a longer answer, than a single word.