Splitting a paper into sections, and when not to
Sections help students budget time and hurt when they fragment a short paper. How to decide, and how to set the section line.
Sections group questions of the same mark value so a student can plan. That is the whole benefit, and it is a real one: a student who can see that Section C is four five-mark questions knows to keep forty minutes for it.
The cost is fragmentation. A short paper cut into five sections spends most of its page area on section headers and instructions.
When sections earn their place
Use them when:
- The paper carries at least three distinct mark values
- Each section has at least three questions
- The mark values differ enough to change how a student allocates time
A paper of twenty questions in four sections of five is well served. A paper of eight questions in four sections of two is not; the sections are noise, and the mark value beside each question would have carried the same information more quietly.
When to skip them
Short papers, class tests, and anything under about twelve questions. Print the marks in a right-hand column and let the paper run continuously.
Also skip them when the questions are all the same value. A section header that says every question is worth two marks, over a paper where every question is worth two marks, is a header saying nothing.
The section line
One line, set apart, carrying three things: which section, what kind of question, and what each is worth.
Section B — Short answer. Questions 8 to 15 carry 2 marks each.
That single line lets you drop the mark figure from eight questions. The paper gets quieter, and the information is more visible than it was when scattered.
Where a section is not uniform, say the range instead and keep the per-question marks:
Section C — Long answer. Questions 16 to 20, marks as shown.
Setting it apart
The section line needs to read as structural rather than as another question. What works:
- Extra space above, more than between questions, and less space below so it attaches to what follows
- Bold, at the same size as the body or one step up
- Optionally a thin rule above it, running the text width
What does not work: a filled box, a different colour, or centring. Centring breaks the left edge that the question numbers establish, and the eye loses the column.
Order the sections by mark value
Ascending, almost always. One-mark questions first, five-mark questions last.
The reason is warm-up: a student answering short factual questions in the first ten minutes settles, and arrives at the demanding questions already working. Opening with a five-mark essay produces a blank ten minutes.
The exception is a paper where the long questions carry the bulk of the marks and time is tight, where some teachers put one long question early to guarantee it gets attempted. That is a defensible choice, but make it deliberately.
Sections and choice
Keep internal choice inside a section rather than across sections. A choice between a Section B question and a Section D question breaks both sections' totals and confuses the count.
State the choice in the section line as well as at the question:
Section D — Long answer. Questions 21 to 24 carry 5 marks each. Internal choice is provided in questions 23 and 24.
Do not restart numbering
Sections group questions; they do not renumber them. Section B starting again at question 1 produces two question 1s in the paper, and a marker with an answer labelled Q1 has to guess.
Continuous numbering across the whole paper, always.
In Docraft, writing a line that begins with Section starts a new section, and the questions under it keep numbering from where the previous section stopped. Section totals are added up from the questions inside rather than typed.