Do they get it? Hinge questions as whole-class diagnostic checks

Last Updated on 24/10/2025 by James Barron

Introduction

I’ve been teaching binary arithmetic for twenty minutes, I have asked many questions and they have given me valuable answers. I’ve explained number bases, recapped place value and modelled how to convert from decimal to binary on the board. I want to get them doing independent practice now, but are they ready? How will I know?

Don’t worry, I have a hinge question ready:

What is the decimal equivalent of the binary number 1011?

1. 1,011 (one thousand and eleven) – wrong, treats place values as decimal
2. 11 (eleven) – correct
3. 7 – wrong – reverses place values: 1,2,4,8 instead of 8,4,2,1
4. 22 (twenty-two) – starts with rightmost place value at 2 instead of 1.

If more than 70% of the class can answer this correctly, I will move on. If not, I will pause and reteach.

Why ask questions?

Questions activate attention, focus memory and reveal what learners have understood. Good questioning nudges pupils to think; it surfaces misunderstandings we can address; and it gives us the data to make teaching decisions. As Adam Boxer’s blog on ratio explains, a question may spark thinking, assess prior knowledge, or do both. The format matters: open questions promote discussion and reasoning, closed questions reduce cognitive load when you need rapid diagnostic evidence. The FHS Teaching and Learning Hub reinforces this – questions must be purposeful, inclusive, and designed to elicit thinking from all pupils.

What are hinge questions?

A diagnostic question (DQ) aims to expose misconceptions; and a hinge question is a specific type of DQ: a whole-class diagnostic question that identifies whether the class is ready to move on. A hinge question sits at a pivotal moment in a lesson – the hinge point. It is planned in advance to be tightly focused on the key concept just taught, and answers must be rapid and actionable. A hinge question is not a discussion prompt or a stretch task – it is a decision tool. Dylan Wiliam captures the idea neatly: “… you stop and you check to see whether the students are still with you and if they are, you do one thing and if they’re not, you do something else.” This check should be quick enough to inform your next move.

Why use hinge questions?

Hinge questions give you immediate, actionable data. They force clarity about what “understanding” looks like for this lesson and allow you to pivot efficiently – recap, reteach, address misconceptions or move on. When every pupil answers simultaneously – via mini-whiteboards or online polling tools such as Socrative, Mentimeter, Plickers, Teams Polls or Google Classroom – pupils can’t opt out or copy others easily, and you can spot patterns in seconds. Well-crafted hinge questions expose specific misconceptions, so your corrective action is precise rather than generic. Third Space Learning offers practical guidance on this, including how to design distractors that reveal common errors.

Are there any downsides?

Hinge questions are not a panacea. Common pitfalls include:

• Ambiguity – if the stem (the question part) or options are unclear, answers don’t diagnose anything, or worse: a badly worded question can lead you astray!
• Guessability – pupils might eliminate options by test-taking tricks rather than demonstrate understanding (for instance, in the example above, binary numbers ending in 1 are always odd, so they can eliminate option D without knowing the skill I am testing).
• Overcomplexity – if answering takes too long, the hinge interrupts flow and loses its value. My example should be do-able in about 30 seconds, but an eight-bit conversion (e.g. 10110100) would be too cumbersome for a hinge question.
• Surface focus – a hinge that checks rote recall won’t reveal deeper conceptual gaps. I didn’t ask “what number base is used in binary numbers?” because a pupil could get this correct (two) without any conceptual understanding of base two or binary numbers.

In short, design matters. If pupils can reach the correct answer by a shortcut – without demonstrating the understanding the question is meant to assess – then the hinge needs to be redesigned.

How do I design hinge questions?

• Plan them before the lesson – identify the key conceptual checkpoints and write the hinge in advance.
• Keep them short and closed – multiple choice or short lettered options reduce extraneous cognitive load and speed parsing by the learners.
• Make distractors meaningful – each wrong option should map to a plausible misconception.
• Choose an appropriate response method – mini-whiteboards or a digital poll let everyone answer simultaneously.
• Predefine your pivot – know what you will do for common response patterns. For instance, have a slide ready to reteach with, or a practical activity to scaffold the concept. And – of course – a second hinge question!

Wiliam recommends regular checks – at least once every 20–30 minutes – and stresses the need to “eyeball the whole-class responses and make a decision about what that means in 30 seconds or less.”

What are some examples?

Below are hinge questions with notes on what each distractor reveals. Use them as templates from which to make your own, and remember, the power is in making distractors diagnostic.

History

Causes of World War I
Which event was the immediate trigger for World War I?

1. Rise of nationalism – wrong, reveals misconception that long-term factors are immediate causes
2. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand – correct; assesses ability to distinguish trigger from background causes
3. Formation of military alliances – wrong, reveals confusion between structural causes and trigger events
4. Imperial competition – wrong, shows students conflating long-term rivalry with immediate causation

English

Figurative language
Which sentence contains a metaphor?

1. The wind whispered through the trees – wrong, confusion with personification
2. The wind tore through the trees like a lion – wrong. this is a simile
3. The wind was a silver thread weaving through the trees – correct, metaphor:
4. The wind in the trees wasn’t entirely unpleasant – wrong, this is litotes

Mathematics

Solving linear equations
Solve 2x + 3 = 11. What is x?

1. x = 4 – correct; checks basic algebraic rearrangement
2. x = 7 – wrong, shows failure to subtract before dividing (11 − 3 = 8; 8 ÷ 2 expected)
3. x = 5 – wrong, reveals an error of adding instead of subtracting (misapplied inverse operations)
4. x = 8 – wrong, indicates misunderstanding of algebraic structure (treats equation as 2x = 11 + 3)

Each distractor is chosen not at random but to surface a different, teachable misconception.

What should I do next?
This week, pick one lesson and plan a hinge. Identify the core concept you must check, draft a closed question with one correct answer and three distractors mapped to likely misconceptions, and choose your response tool: mini-whiteboards or an online poll. Tell the class why you’re asking the question: “I’m checking if we’re ready to move on.” Pose the question, collect responses from everyone, and make your decision in under a minute. If responses show confusion, resist the urge to plough on, instead pivot to reteach, discuss misconceptions or model how to arrive at the correct answer. Then ask another, similar hinge question you prepared for just such a moment!

What should I take away from this article?
Hinge questions are a deceptively simple technique that sharpen your formative assessment and reduce the guesswork of “do they get it?” They are a specialised subset of diagnostic questions: whole-class, rapid, and actionable. Done well, they keep your teaching responsive and your pupils working at the edge of their competence. Done badly, they mislead and waste time. Write three hinge questions this week, use one tomorrow and reflect on what the responses teach you about your pupils: not just what they got wrong, but why.

References

• Adam Boxer’s blog on ratio
• FHS Teaching and Learning Hub on effective questioning
• Third Space Learning on hinge questions
• Dylan Wiliam on hinge questions
• Socrative
• Mentimeter
• Plickers
• Microsoft Teams Polls
• Google Classroom