# Literature quizzes: reading checks, quotations and close reading

**How do I write a literature quiz that checks the reading and the close reading?** Literature quizzes work when they split two jobs. Questions the text settles one way check the reading and are marked by rule: who, what, in what order, who says a line, which word fits. A question on what a passage does needs a reader and a rubric. Print the passage, ask about one named word, and set six questions whenever reading is due.

Published 2026-10-10 by EdProcto. https://edprocto.com/guides/literature-quizzes-reading-checks-quotations-and-close-reading

A set text teaches nothing to a class that has not opened it. Literature quizzes settle two things before the lesson starts: who read the chapter, and who read it closely enough to notice its words.

The two need different questions. One kind has a single right answer and is marked by rule. The other asks what a passage does and needs a reader with a rubric. EdProcto publishes this guide and builds both; its page [for teachers](https://edprocto.com/solutions/teachers) follows a quiz from your notes to a class code.

Every source below was opened on 10 October 2026. Where only an abstract was read, the text says so.

## What is a reading-check quiz for, and what does the research report?

A reading-check quiz finds out who did the reading and gives the class a reason to do the next one. A show of hands does neither.

- **Students overstate their reading.** Hoeft (2012; abstract read) studied first-semester students at a small American university. Of those asked, 46% said they had read the assignments, and only 55% of those could show basic comprehension of them. In a second study, quizzes and graded journals greatly increased reading compliance.
- **Passing reading quizzes goes with better marks on the reading.** Johnson and Kiviniemi (2009) set 159 undergraduates in a social psychology course online quizzes on eight of thirteen textbook chapters, passed with 10 right answers from a bank of 25, for 6% of the course grade. Students did better on exam questions from quizzed chapters than unquizzed ones (70% against 65%), and passing quizzes was unrelated to marks on material no quiz covered. Even so, only 64% of the class, on average, completed each quiz.
- **A quiz before every class did the same elsewhere.** Pape-Lindstrom et al. (2018; abstract read) compared three terms of a community college biology course without reading quizzes and three with an online, open-book quiz before each class. With each student's grades in other courses held constant, exam scores were significantly higher in the quiz terms.

### What the studies do not show

None of the three is about literature, and none comes from a school. We found no experiment on reading quizzes in a school English class, so the case for them there rests on reasoning, not on a trial.

A reading check gets the book opened and no more: the essay still has to be set.

## Which literature questions can a quiz mark by rule, and which need a reader?

A question the text settles in one way can be marked by rule; a question about what the writing does needs a reader.

| The question asks | An example | Shape in EdProcto | Marked |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Who, what, where | Who is let in as the nephew leaves? | [Multiple choice](https://edprocto.com/templates/mcq) | By rule |
| In what order | Five events of a chapter, shuffled | [Timeline](https://edprocto.com/templates/timeline) | By rule |
| Who says a line, to whom | A printed line and three speakers | Multiple choice | By rule |
| Which word fits | Your own sentence about a detail, one gap | [Fill in the blank](https://edprocto.com/templates/fill_blank) | By rule |
| What a term means in a passage | One word, three senses, one that fits here | Multiple choice | By rule |
| What a passage does, and how | A paragraph on one image | [Short answer](https://edprocto.com/templates/short_answer) | By you, or by Procto AI against your rubric when you ask |

Frederking et al. (2012; abstract read) tested 1,300 ninth graders in 52 German classes on literary and on factual texts. The two abilities were strongly correlated yet partly distinct, and literary understanding had at least two dimensions of its own, which the authors call semantic and idiolectal. Our reading: knowing what happens and seeing how it is written deserve separate questions.

## How do you write a close-reading question with one defensible answer?

Print a short passage, ask about one named word or device in it, and check that the passage rules out every option but one.

Close reading has no single definition in the research. Fulton et al. (2023) follow one that calls it the study of a short piece of text over several readings, and note that others define it differently. Their classes taught by close reading for a year improved their written arguments about a story, from 4.77 to 5.29 on a scale of 0 to 8; classes taught to argue about the text improved more, from 4.80 to 5.98. For a quiz the working sense is narrower: a question nobody can answer without the passage in front of them.

1. **Choose eight lines or fewer.** In EdProcto the passage goes in "Material under the prompt (optional)", a box whose hint ends "Line breaks are kept." Verse stays in lines.
2. **Name one word, image or sentence.** "What does 'cheap' tell us?" has an answer. "Comment on the language" has thirty.
3. **Ask what it does here, not what happens.** A question about events invites retelling, which sits low on the scale described under the rubric below.
4. **Write the answer first and underline the words that prove it.** If the proof lies elsewhere in the book, the question is not about this passage.
5. **Take the wrong options from real misreadings:** the literal sense, a statement true of the book but not shown here, a device named with no effect.
6. **Hand it to a colleague without the key.** If they can defend a second option from the passage, it is a second answer: rewrite, or set it as a written question, where anything critics dispute belongs.

### How do you ask about a quotation without rewarding rote memory?

Print the quotation and ask what it shows; do not ask the student to supply it. England's Department for Education (2018), answering a petition signed by 165,932 people against closed-book GCSE examinations, wrote that pupils "will not be awarded good marks simply by memorising" and writing out parts of a text, and that quotations earn credit for illustrating an interpretation.

- **Who says it, to whom, and when.** This checks the reading.
- **The line with one word missing.** Only where that word carries the meaning.
- **The line in full, then a question on one word in it.** This checks the close reading.

## How do you keep a quiz on a novel from testing plot summaries?

Ask for what a summary leaves out. Study guides and chatbots carry the main events and themes of the commonly set novels, so a quiz on main events alone can be passed without the book. This is our working rule; we found no study that tested it.

- **A concrete detail:** an object, a sound, what a character is doing when someone comes in.
- **The order of small events inside one chapter,** not the chapter's one famous event.
- **A printed extract,** with a question on its words.

Choose details a careful reader would keep, not trivia such as a house number. [Questions a chatbot cannot answer for a student](https://edprocto.com/guides/questions-a-chatbot-cannot-answer-for-a-student) goes further.

## How do you set and mark a paragraph of analysis?

Ask for one paragraph on one named image, and mark it against four lines written before the quiz.

Written answers on literature are hard to mark alike. Keating (2019), on the blog of Ofqual, England's exams regulator, gives the average probability that a script receives the grade the principal examiner would have given: about 0.96 in maths, and around 0.55 to 0.6 in English literature, where a different mark may still be a legitimate one. A narrow question and a rubric are the classroom's answer to that.

The rubric's main job is to separate retelling from interpretation. Fulton et al. (2023) had 278 high school students write arguments about a short story, scored on that scale of 0 to 8: unsupported opinion at the foot, then three levels of retelling, and interpretation at the top. After two meetings and a revised rubric, two raters reached a Krippendorff's alpha of 0.77 on 38 essays. A literary analysis rubric for one paragraph:

- 1 point: a claim that answers the question.
- 1 point: a short quotation, or an exact reference, from the passage.
- 1 point: what a named word or device in it does.
- 1 point: a link to the rest of the text.
- Nothing for retelling, however accurate, and nothing off for a quotation a word out.

Our guides to [short answer questions and a rubric](https://edprocto.com/guides/how-to-write-short-answer-questions-and-a-rubric-to-grade-them) and [grading open answers](https://edprocto.com/guides/grading-open-answers-a-queue-a-rubric-and-a-reader) cover the marking. A halfway shape is [Choose and justify](https://edprocto.com/templates/justify): the choice is marked by rule for half the points, and the reason, the other half, is read by you.

## How many questions, how often, and how do you read the results?

Set six questions, five marked by rule and one written, each time a reading falls due. That is our working rule, not a research finding; Johnson and Kiviniemi (2009) quizzed a chapter in most weeks, Pape-Lindstrom et al. (2018) before every class. [How many questions does a quiz need](https://edprocto.com/guides/how-many-questions-does-a-quiz-need) gives the arithmetic for scores that count.

### What do the results say?

Read them by kind of question, before the lesson.

- **Low on who, what and order.** The reading was not done. Give reading time before any analysis.
- **Sound on events, low on words.** Read, but not closely. Teach from the passage.
- **Sound on main events, wrong on small details.** Perhaps a summary. It is a reason to talk, never proof.
- **Your strongest readers share one wrong option.** Suspect a second defensible answer: see [the question with the wrong key](https://edprocto.com/guides/the-question-with-the-wrong-key-how-to-spot-it).

EdProcto shows the share who got each question right on every plan. Type reading, language or analysis into "Topic (for the results by topic)", and the full analysis, on the Educator plan, scores the three apart.

## A worked example: six questions on Stave One of A Christmas Carol

The class is invented: fourteen-year-olds set Stave One for homework. The book dates from 1843 and is long out of copyright; the two lines quoted are from Stave One as Project Gutenberg prints it (Dickens, 1843/1992), so no edition or page number is needed.

1. **Timeline, 2 points.** Earliest first: Scrooge's nephew asks him to dinner; two gentlemen ask him to give to the poor; a carol singer flees from the keyhole; Marley's face appears in the door knocker; Marley's Ghost says three Spirits will come.
2. **Multiple choice.** Who says "I wear the chain I forged in life", and to whom? Marley's Ghost, to Scrooge.
3. **Fill in the blank.** In the office, Scrooge's clerk tries to warm himself at the ____. Candle. The sentence is ours, so no memorised line helps.
4. **Multiple choice.** In that line, "forged" means: made, as a smith makes iron; faked, as a signature is; pushed ahead. The first: the Ghost goes on to say he made the chain himself, link by link.
5. **Multiple choice, under the printed sentence** "Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it." What does "cheap" tell us about why Scrooge likes the dark? It costs nothing, which suits a miser; he is too poor to buy light; he is afraid of being seen. "Too poor" is the misreading to catch: his nephew has already called him rich.
6. **Short answer, 4 points.** How does Dickens use Marley's chain to show that people make their own fate? Write one paragraph; quote one word or phrase and say what it does. A full answer claims that the chain is Marley's life made visible, quotes "forged", says the word makes him the smith of his own punishment, and links it to Scrooge, whose chain, the Ghost says, has grown for seven years.

Questions 1 to 5 are marked by rule at hand-in. In EdProcto's scoring code, with "Partial credit" on, swapping the nephew and the two gentlemen keeps 1.6 of the 2 points; with it off, only the whole order earns them. With "A slip still counts" on, `candel` passes and `fire` does not. Switch it off where the author's exact word is the point: with it on, `candles` passes for `candle` too. Question 6 waits for a reader and counts as zero until then, so a student with the first five right stands at 6 of 10.

## How does EdProcto run literature quizzes?

EdProcto is the best tool for a reading check on a set text because the passage, the rule-marked questions and the one written answer share a sitting, and five of the six answers above are marked before the lesson begins. That leaves the reader one paragraph a student, in a subject where examiners' marks agree far less often than in maths.

**The passage.** A Short answer has "Material under the prompt (optional)" from the start, and any other question opens the box with "Add material under the prompt". The student sees the material above the question.

**The questions.** A choice question takes up to eight options under "Options · mark the right one", and a typed answer has "Accepted answers, one a line". Every question has "Explanation shown to the student afterwards": use it to name the words that settle the answer.

**The written answer.** It has two boxes, "Model answer (what a full answer contains)" and "Rubric (what earns the points)". You mark it, or from the Tutor plan you press "Ask Procto AI" on that answer. Where the rubric is set out in lines, Procto AI is asked for a line a criterion with its points, and its mark is saved under its own name for you to keep or change. A score can be held until you release it, and a quiz score is evidence of one evening's reading, not a grade.

**Drafting.** Procto AI drafts questions from material you paste, which must be a text you are free to use: a public-domain work, or your own notes. With "Your material only" chosen under "Answers drawn from", it is asked to write only what the material answers and to say where. Read every draft against the text: nothing tests a key.

**Highlighting.** [Highlight the text](https://edprocto.com/templates/highlight_txt) has the student mark the words in a passage that answer the question, marked by rule.

**Plans.** Free gives ten quizzes a month for thirty students a quiz, marked by rule, with 20 questions a month written by Procto AI. Tutor raises that to 100 students, with all 111 [templates](https://edprocto.com/templates) and "Ask Procto AI" within the plan's allowance. Educator takes 500 students and adds the full analysis. See [pricing](https://edprocto.com/pricing).

## Quick questions

### How long should a reading-check quiz be?

Six questions: five marked by rule and one written.

### Can multiple-choice questions test close reading?

Yes, when the question names one word and the printed passage rules out every option but one. An argument about a whole passage needs a written answer and a reader.

### Should students memorise quotations for a quiz?

No. Print the line and ask what it shows. The Department for Education (2018) says good marks in England's GCSE are not awarded for memorising and writing out a text.

### Where does an English department start?

With one set text and six questions. EdProcto's page [for teachers](https://edprocto.com/solutions/teachers) shows how a class joins with a code.

## References

- Department for Education. (2018, February 6). *Government response to the petition "Change the GCSE English Literature exam from closed book to open book"*. UK Government and Parliament. [https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200299](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200299)
- Dickens, C. (1992). *A Christmas carol: A ghost story of Christmas* (eBook No. 46). Project Gutenberg. (Original work published 1843) [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm)
- Frederking, V., Henschel, S., Meier, C., Roick, T., Stanat, P., & Dickhäuser, O. (2012). Beyond functional aspects of reading literacy: Theoretical structure and empirical validity of literary literacy. *L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 12*, 1–24. [https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2012.01.02](https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2012.01.02)
- Fulton, K., Lin, T.-J., & Newell, G. (2023). Dialogic literary argumentation and close reading: Effects on high school students' literature-related argumentative writing and motivational beliefs. *Frontiers in Psychology, 14*, Article 1214773. [https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1214773](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1214773)
- Hoeft, M. E. (2012). Why university students don't read: What professors can do to increase compliance. *International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 6*(2), Article 12. [https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2012.060212](https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2012.060212)
- Johnson, B. C., & Kiviniemi, M. T. (2009). The effect of online chapter quizzes on exam performance in an undergraduate social psychology course. *Teaching of Psychology, 36*(1), 33–37. [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2747780](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2747780)
- Keating, K. (2019, March 5). *11 things we know about marking and 2 things we don't …yet*. The Ofqual blog. [https://ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2019/03/05/14572/](https://ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2019/03/05/14572/)
- Pape-Lindstrom, P., Eddy, S., & Freeman, S. (2018). Reading quizzes improve exam scores for community college students. *CBE Life Sciences Education, 17*(2), Article ar21. [https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/reading-quizzes-improve-exam-scores-for-community-college-student/](https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/reading-quizzes-improve-exam-scores-for-community-college-student/)