A unit test covers one or two chapters, usually carries twenty to twenty-five marks, runs in a single period, and carries no internal choice. Its purpose is diagnostic — to find out who has not understood something while there is still time to do something about it — not to rank a class.
We do not write the questions. TurtleDock holds no question bank: this gives you the paper’s structure and the marks arithmetic, and the items are set by the subject teacher against the syllabus actually taught.
The commonest mistake with unit tests is setting them like small annual papers. A shrunken annual paper produces a mark and nothing else; a unit test is supposed to produce information about who to help and with what.
That difference changes every structural decision — whether to offer choice, how to spread difficulty, and whether it should be marked out of anything at all.
Internal choice exists in a board paper to be fair across a large syllabus. In a unit test it destroys the only thing the test was for.
If a student may skip the question on the topic they do not understand, the test cannot tell you they do not understand it. Everyone answers everything, and the gaps are visible.
Every question should map to something specific you would teach again.
| Element | Unit test | Annual paper |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | One or two chapters | Full syllabus |
| Choice | None | Internal choice in higher-mark sections |
| Difficulty spread | Narrow — pitched at what was taught | Wide, to separate the class |
| Marking turnaround | Same week, or it is pointless | Within the results schedule |
| What it produces | A list of who needs what re-taught | A mark that goes on a record |
| Result use | Teaching decision | Report card and promotion |
A unit test marked three weeks later is an administrative record of something that can no longer be acted on. The class has moved two chapters on and nobody is going back.
So keep it short enough to mark the same week. Twenty marks marked on Thursday beats fifty marks marked at the end of the month, every time.
Phrased the way they arrive, answered so each one stands on its own.
Only if your assessment scheme says so, and be deliberate about it. A test designed to find gaps stops being safe to take honestly the moment students know it counts.
Enough that a gap gets caught while it can still be fixed, few enough that they get marked promptly. In practice that is usually one per chapter-block rather than one per week.
Yes. Assessment types are separate components with their own weights, so a diagnostic test can be recorded without it counting towards a terminal result unless your scheme says it should.
Checked by the Assessment desk on 8 September 2026. Corrections go in the page, dated, rather than quietly.
Pricing is on the page, in the open, with the counting rule written next to it. Nobody has to book a call to find out what it costs.
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