---
name: hinge-questions
description: Read this whenever a teacher needs to know, mid-lesson, whether the class has got it. Use it when asked for a quick check for understanding, a diagnostic or multiple-choice question, an exit-ticket question, or when someone needs to decide between moving on and reteaching. It produces a single item where every wrong answer names a specific misconception, plus the plan for what to do at each result.
---

# Hinge questions

A hinge question sits where the lesson forks: the point at which what you do next
should depend on what the class currently understands. Highest-value item type in
Wiliam's toolkit, and the hardest to write.

## What done looks like

An item plus a response plan, in this shape:

```
HINGE QUESTION — <topic>
Place: <where in the lesson, and what decision it informs>
Format: <ABCD cards / mini whiteboards / poll>   Time: <n> min

<stem>
A. …  B. …  C. …  D. …

Key: <letter(s)>

Diagnosis:  A → <misconception, plain language> → <what to do>
            B → KEY
            C → <misconception> → <what to do>

Response plan:  ≥80% key → move on
                50–80%   → pair a right with a wrong, re-poll
                <50%     → reteach <the specific thing>
                C dominant → reteach <that misconception> first
```

The response plan is not an extra. Without it you have written a quiz question.

## Hard constraints

Both must hold or it isn't a hinge question:

1. **Every learner answers in under two minutes** — ideally under one.
2. **The teacher reads the whole class in about 30 seconds**, standing at the
   front, mid-lesson. This is what forces multiple choice with a simultaneous
   all-class response.

And three design constraints:

3. **Every wrong answer is diagnostic.** If you can't write "a learner who picks C
   believes ___", the option isn't working.
4. **The key can't be reached by wrong reasoning.** The most-broken rule. Defend
   it by allowing more than one correct option without saying how many (kills
   elimination), by making surface features point the wrong way, or by adding a
   second tier: "which reason explains your answer?"
5. **Everyone commits before seeing anyone else.** Otherwise you're measuring
   conformity.

## The part that actually takes the work

**Name the misconceptions before writing any options.** Then work the problem *as
a learner holding each one*, and the answer they'd get is your distractor.
Distractors invented for plausibility get chosen by nobody, and an item where
everyone picks the key tells the teacher nothing.

Real misconceptions, best first: your own learners' previous wrong answers (pull
them if a Nurture server is connected); examiner reports and diagnostic question
banks; the misconception literature for the domain; systematic derivation from the
procedure. `references/misconception-sources.md` covers all four plus
domain-by-domain starting points.

If you had to invent them, **say so** — they're untested.

Then try to break your own item: reach the key by elimination, by surface
pattern-matching, by applying last lesson's rule without understanding. If any
works, redesign.

## Judgement calls

- **Is there actually a hinge here?** Ask the teacher: at what point would you do
  two genuinely different things depending on the response? If there's no such
  point, they need a retrieval quiz or an exit ticket, not this. Say so.
- **What would make the next 20 minutes wasted?** That misunderstanding is the
  hinge — not the thing that's easiest to ask.
- **Offer 2–3 alternatives** at different lesson points when the topic has more
  than one plausible hinge.

## Reject the item if

- [ ] It can't be answered in 2 minutes or read in 30 seconds.
- [ ] Any distractor has no named misconception behind it.
- [ ] The key is reachable by elimination, guessing, or surface matching.
- [ ] There's no response plan.
- [ ] It's a disguised recall question — wrong answers just mean "didn't remember".
- [ ] It has five or six options. Unreadable at a glance.
- [ ] Reading demand is doing work the concept should be doing.

## Two failures that happen after the item is written

- **Asking it and not acting on it.** The commonest failure in practice: the
  teacher polls, sees half the class is wrong, and moves on because the plan says
  so. Put the response plan in the output and say this out loud.
- **Recording it as a grade.** Hinge questions are diagnostic. The moment they
  carry marks, learners optimise for looking right rather than revealing what they
  think, and the instrument stops working.

Treat the percentage bands as sensible defaults, not thresholds with evidential
standing.

## References

- `references/misconception-sources.md` — where real misconceptions come from,
  how to derive them systematically, domain starting points.
- `references/worked-examples.md` — hinge questions across maths, science,
  English, history, primary and vocational, each with its misconception map.