These are sometimes referred to as ordering questions. For example (from a help guide for the Blackboard™ Learning Management System):
Ordering Questions
Ordering questions require students to provide an answer by selecting the correct order of a series of items. For example, you can give
students a list of historical events and ask them to place these
events in chronological order.
Some purists will point out that an ordering question is simply a special kind of a matching question. For example, you might have an ordering question that reads:
Rank the following from earliest to latest:
- a) signing of the Treaty of Ghent
- b) signing of the Declaration of Independence
- c) signing of the Emancipation Proclamation
- d) signing of the Magna Carta
This is essentially a much "cleaner" way of asking:
Match the items in the top list with the correct description in the bottom list:
- 1) signing of the Treaty of Ghent
- 2) signing of the Declaration of Independence
- 3) signing of the Emancipation Proclamation
- 4) signing of the Magna Carta
- a) the earliest of the four events
- b) the second-earliest of the four events
- c) the secondmost-recent of the four events
- d) the most recent of the four events
(although, from a technical standpoint, the two questions are essentially the same).
