2026-09-02|8 min read
Writing questions with Bloom taxonomy
In short
What sets the cognitive level of a question is the mental work it asks for, not the verb in the stem: pulling an answer from memory is recall, carrying it into a new situation is application. One objective can yield questions at all six levels, and multiple choice reaches analysis and evaluation too. The level that resists the format is create.
Bloom taxonomy classifies the kind of mental work a question asks a student for. There are six levels, rising in demand: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create.
The most common mistake in practice is reading the level off the verb in the stem. A question may open with "explain" and still measure recall, if the explanation was memorised in class. What follows is how the level is actually decided, and how one topic yields questions at all six.
Two versions in circulation, both valid
You will meet two different lists. The original 1956 ordering runs knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. The 2001 revision by Anderson and Krathwohl turns the names into verbs and swaps the last two: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create.
The revision is the one in common use today. Which list you pick matters less than staying inside it for the whole exam file. A blueprint whose columns come from one version and whose question tags come from the other cannot be read.
The verb does not set the level, the student situation does
The same question can sit at two different levels in two different classrooms. The test is this: has the student done this exact work before?
A problem solved step by step in class and then reissued with different numbers looks like application, but for that student it is recall, because the route is already laid out. Move the same problem into a context they have not met and it becomes application.
So ask yourself one question while writing: will the student pull this from memory, or carry what they know into a new situation? The answer gives you the level.
- Pulling from memory: remember
- Restating in their own words or giving an example: understand
- Carrying a known route into a new situation: apply
- Breaking a whole into parts and relating them: analyse
- Judging against a criterion and justifying it: evaluate
- Building a new whole out of parts: create
One topic, six levels: the area of a triangle
A single objective can yield questions at every level. The ladder below makes that concrete.
- Remember: What is the formula for the area of a triangle?
- Understand: If the base stays fixed and the height doubles, how does the area change?
- Apply: A triangle has a base of 12 cm and a height of 7 cm. What is its area?
- Analyse: Given the area of a triangle drawn inside a rectangle, what is the area of the unshaded region?
- Evaluate: Two students found the same area by different routes. Which route takes fewer steps, and why?
- Create: How many different right triangles with whole-number sides have an area of 24 cm²?
Multiple choice can reach the upper levels
A common belief holds that multiple choice only measures recall. It does not. Both the analyse and evaluate examples above can be written with options.
What marks a higher-level multiple choice question is this: choosing between the options requires doing work or relating parts. If a student can read the stem, look at the options and recognise the answer, the question sits at recall no matter how long the stem runs.
The one level that genuinely resists options is create. If the student is meant to build a new whole, the options have already built it for them. Create is measured with open-ended questions, performance tasks or projects.
How the levels should spread across an exam
There is no single correct distribution, but a working start: about half the questions at remember and understand, a third at apply, the rest at analyse and above. The weight shifts upward as the grade level rises.
Counting the spread after the exam teaches you something too. If nearly every question on an exam you wrote lands in the first two levels, that is rarely a deliberate choice. Recall questions are the fastest to write, and the exam drifts there on its own.
Every question in this pool carries a cognitive level as a tag. When the exam comes down as a PDF the blueprint is built from those tags, so the spread does not have to be counted by hand.
Three things to avoid when tagging
- Trusting verb lists blindly. "Compare" counts as analysis, but if the comparison was made in class the question is recall.
- Confusing difficulty with level. A long application problem can be harder than a short analysis question. Difficulty is a separate axis.
- Writing two levels on one question. The blueprint totals break. A question sits at the single level of the work it asks for.
Frequently asked
- How many levels does Bloom taxonomy have?
- Six. In the revised version: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create. The original 1956 version ends with synthesis and then evaluation instead.
- Does an exam need all six levels?
- No. Looking for six levels on a four-question quiz makes no sense. Two or three can be enough depending on scope. What matters is that they do not all pile into the first level.
- Can a multiple choice question measure analysis?
- Yes. If choosing between options requires the student to do work or relate parts, the question sits at analysis. The level that resists options is create, which needs an open-ended format.
- Are difficulty and cognitive level the same thing?
- No. Difficulty is about how many students answer correctly; level is about the kind of mental work required. You can write an easy analysis question and a hard recall question.