An Investigation of Critical Thinking Levels of Examination Questions for B.A. Compulsory English at the University of the Punjab

In a country like Pakistan, Written examination is a conventional tool to evaluate the student’s performance in any subject area, where the required cognitive ability is defined through items such as learning outcomes.So in such a system, students’ ability depends very much on the questions asked in the written examination question papers. A good and reasonable examination paper must, therefore, consist of various difficulty levels to accommodate the different capabilities of students. In this work, the difficulty level of each question in the examination paper is determined from the criteria of keyword/s found in the question. The paper provides conclusions on the current relationship between examination questions, learning outcomes and student performance, as well as providing some indication of the relative changes required to move toward a more appropriate association and hence improve an assessment strategy.