Problem-Attic


Problem-Attic is a great resource for teachers to use to create assessments that are directly aligned to state and/or common core standards. It allows me to choose questions from old standardized exams to prepare and assess students. I have used Problem-Attic before for exams and think it is very easy to use. Each question stands alone and allows me to pick only the questions I want to use for an assessment. All questions are separated by topic, so I do not have to spend the time looking through each year’s exam for questions specific to the assessment topic (although, they also have exams sorted by year).

Problem-Attic does not only include multiple choice questions, but also short-answer or open-ended questions. This is especially helpful as it provides the full range of question types that students will find on state assessments. One aspect of preparing students for state exams is practicing how to read different types of questions.

Problem-Attic also allows for scrambling the order of questions to create different versions of the exam. Unfortunately, cheating is always a possibility, so different versions of exams helps to combat this.

The basic features of finding questions, creating exams, and scrambling questions are free. There are some features that I found especially helpful, but require a paid subscription. If I were to need a combination of old exam questions and my own questions, I can create my own problems within the exam created with old questions. I can also edit questions (math formulas, insert images, text, etc.)

The only issue I have with Problem-Attic is the exam database. Because I teach middle school, I would love to have state exams for grades six through eight. There are NYS Regents exams, but not lower grades. Hopefully, these exams will be added to the site in the future.

Overall, Problem-Attic is a great resource to use for generating summative assessments that both assess students’ knowledge/ability at the end of a topic/unit and also prepare them for end of year state assessments. I also see Problem-Attic being used for traditional test prep material.  

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