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When designing an exam, would you mention the maximum score per question or not? Is it common practice?

In my view this promotes cherry-picking. This could be seen as a way to prioritize or to satisfice (leaving questions open since "they are not worth it").

Is there any scientific proof/pedagogical insight this is a "must", "nice for students " or "making it easier for students"?

Any thoughts on this (from professors and students)?

It is true that telling how many points each question is worth would allow "gaming" the exam. Ok, but not telling, that is, keeping the grading system secret, is quite strange and dishonest, since you are not telling the target that the students should aim for.

Anyway, I think it's not a serious worry, if (as @Solar Mike sugggests) the lower-weight questions are commensurately easier.

In my own practice, both for undergrad and graduate courses, as well as Written Prelims, I just make all questions equally weighted (and the questions, perhaps grouping together smaller questions) are reasonably comparable in time-required-to-respond.

Although your concern is obviously legitimate, I think this issue is, yet-again, one of those where to really squelch "gaming the system" would be inappropriately punitive for those students who are earnest and acting in good faith.

If the maximum score per question is not disclosed, a dishonest professor can retroactively change the scoring scheme to advantage or disadvantage particular students.

As an (exaggerated) example, suppose that Professor Wormer really hates Blutarsky, one of the students in his class. Wormer gives an exam with 10 questions but does not say how many points each question is worth. When the exams are handed in, he sees that Blutarsky has correctly answered every question except #4, which he got completely wrong. Wormer then decides that Question 4 will be worth 91 points, and the remaining questions will each be worth 1 point. Wormer can claim that these were the point values he intended all along; Blutarsky may be certain this is a lie, but he has no way to prove it. Blutarsky flunks the exam, fails the course, loses his draft deferment, and is sent overseas as army cannon fodder.

By announcing the maximum score per question on the exam, the students can be assured that this particular sort of malfeasance won't be possible.

(Of course there are plenty of other ways a malicious professor can abuse grading authority, but eliminating a few of them seems desirable in any case.)

There’s nothing wrong with cherry picking because (presumably) not all parts of the course have equal importance. Indeed one could argue that assigning greater weight (and declaring this weight) to questions connected with “core concepts” will better recompense students who have mastered these important concepts rather than less important parts of the material, all the more so as exams are typically time-constrained.

My thoughts: this is based on the norms in your department. Simply ask your colleagues what they do and what students in your department are used to. Then do it.

As for myself, I give the marks for each question because this is the policy in my department. I have never seen any student gaming the exam though. They all try to do everything.

The policy where I am is that the points for each question are shown.

This is fine, because (and only an example):

1. small questions can be worth 1 or 2 points,




2. short answer questions can be 2 or 5 points,




3. longer questions ie involved calculations, can be 5 or 10 points,




4. essay type questions can be 10 or 15 or 20 points

All of these can be adjusted or combined in many combinations to provide an exam with a variety of questions which still challenges the students.

Note 5 or more small questions can be grouped to make one larger question worth more, but then the question is are those “sequential”? Ie if you get the first part wrong then all the other parts are wrong or are they 5 disparate questions clumped together so the exam author can say “all questions carry the same points”...

Examinations are time-limited, so time is a scarce resource that students need to economise. Stipulating the marks allocated to exam questions has three main purposes:

1. Objectivity: The stipulated marks creates a more objective assessment, insofar as the weightings on the questions are fixed by the stipulated marks. This prevents students from being unfairly penalised by subjective re-allocation of marks.




2. Time allocation: The stipulated marks allows students to economise their time by allocating it in a manner that gives appropriate levels of time relative to the marks available for the question.




3. Implicit expectation of detail: Ideally, marks should be allocated roughly commensurately with the time the question will take to complete if done properly. This gives the students an understanding of the proportion of time that each question should take, and so it allows them to diagnose whether they are taking too long on a question. This also means that the allocated marks gives the student an implicit hint as to how much detail they are expected to give in a question --- low mark questions usually do not require large amounts of detail.

In your question, you seem to be taking the view that it is bad for students to economise their limited time, and that this incentivises students to eschew answering entire questions. So long as there is sufficient time available in the exam, this should not be the case. (A useful rule-of-thumb I heard for exams was that the course lecturer should be able to complete the exam in 1/3 of the time limit for an undergraduate exam, or 1/2 of the time limit for a postgraduate exam. This should be done under conditions where the course lecturer first "forgets" the answers to the exam, and has to figure them out in the time limit.)

You should give the marks for each question - it informs the student as to how much time to spend on a question.

See this related question. If the maximum mark had been anything other than 1 point, it should be clear to the student that something more than a yes/no answer is expected. If the maximum mark had been 10 points, it should be clear to the student that a full paragraph of explanation is needed.