Open and Closed Questions

When formulating questions a useful approach to use is to consider them as either open or closed.

CLOSED questions have very short answers.  The answer may be the name of a person or place. It might have an answer that is just Yes or No.

Examples are:

• Who invented electricity?

• Does Saturn have an atmosphere?

• How many days in a year?

 OPEN questions usually have more than one answer and there are often many different answers possible.

Examples are:

• What are10 Australian animals that are not mammals?

• What would happen if we didn't get any rain this Winter?

• Which planet of our solar system could we inhabit and why?