The Four Types of Questions- Simple Exercise

Two Categories of Questions

Some kinds of questions are better at helping us comprehend than others.
Simple Questions
- have simple answers (takes a few words to state)
- are limited (find an answer and move on)
- focuses on objects/things
Complex Questions
- are unlimited (can lead you to think of more questions)
- have layered answers (takes paragraphs to explain)
- focuses on ideas

Four Types of Questions
Simple Questions
- Fact
- Guess
Complex Question
- Evaluative
- Interpretive

Factual Questions
1) Fact – A question of fact has only one correct answer and can be answered directly from information given in a source. (When dealing with fictional material it may not be “true” information, but you can look in the story and find the “correct” answer.)
- Factual questions don’t help us specifically understand the meaning of the piece any better.
- Someone has already done the thinking for you, all you have to do is find out what they wrote.
- Factual answers are usually short.
- Factual questions check to see if we remember details from a story.
- These are the types of questions you are usually asked on tests.

The Rich Man and the Shoemaker
by Jean de La Fontaine
Once upon a time there lived a poor but cheerful shoemaker. He was so happy he sang all day long. The children loved to stand around his window to listen to him.
Next door to the shoemaker lived a rich man. He used to sit up all night to count his gold. In the morning he went to bed, but he could not sleep because of the sound of the shoemaker’s singing. One day he thought of a way of stopping the singing. He wrote a letter to the shoemaker asking him to come by.
The shoemaker went at once, and to his surprise the rich man gave him a bag of gold.
When he got home, the shoemaker opened the bag. He had never seen so much money before! He sat down at his bench and began, carefully, to count it. The children watched through the window.
There was so much there that the shoemaker was afraid to let it out of his sight. So he took it to bed with him. But he could not sleep because he was worrying about it. So he got out of bed and went to hide it in the attic, but he was not sure if that was a good place.
Very early in the morning he got up and brought his gold down from the attic. He had decided to hide it up the chimney instead. But after breakfast he thought it would be safer in the chicken house. So he hid it there.
But he was still uneasy, and in a little while he dug a hole in the garden and buried his bag of gold in it.
It was no use trying to work. He was too worried about the safety of his gold.
And as for singing, he was too miserable to sing a note. He could not sleep, or work, or sing—and, worst of all, the children no longer came to see him.
At last the shoemaker felt so unhappy that he seized his bag of gold and ran next door to the rich man.
“Please take back your gold,” he said. “Worrying about it is making me ill, and I have lost all my friends. I would rather be a poor shoemaker, as I was before.”
And so the shoemaker was happy again and sang all day at his work.

Shoemaker… Factual Questions
- The shoemaker was so happy he did what all day?
- Who lived next door to the shoemaker?
- What did the rich man give to the shoemaker?
Factual Questions - Your Turn
Write three factual questions about the story on the piece of scrap paper you
received.
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Guess Questions
2) Guess – These types of questions could have any answer with no way of knowing if the answer is true or false.
- Guess questions have answers based on opinion.
- Guess questions do not help us understand the piece better.
- Guess questions lead us away from understanding the piece because we are distracted with unnecessary things.
Shoemaker… Guess Questions
- What color was the shoemaker’s hair?
- Where did the rich man work?
- What were the names of the kids who watched and listened to the shoemaker?
Guess Questions - Your Turn
Write three guess questions about the story on the piece of scrap paper you
received.
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-?
-?