Almost every school in India uses a version of the same question paper format. It is not written down anywhere as a rule, but a Class 5 unit test in Nagpur and a Class 8 half-yearly in Lucknow will look recognisably alike: a header block, a short instructions box, two to four labelled sections, marks in the right margin, and ruled space to write in. Once you know the pattern, setting a paper stops being a design problem and becomes a five-minute job of dropping in questions.
This guide walks through each part in the order it appears on the page, gives you a marks split that works, and lists the things that most often get a paper sent back by a coordinator.
1. The header
The header does two jobs: it identifies the assessment, and it gives the student somewhere to write their details so you are not marking anonymous scripts. Keep it to four or five lines. A header that runs to a third of the first page is stealing space from questions.
- School name, centred, in the largest type on the page
- Assessment title — Unit Test 1, Half-Yearly Examination, Annual Examination, Formative Assessment 2
- Subject, class and section, and the academic year
- Student fields: Name, Roll No., Date — as ruled blanks, not just labels
- Time allowed and total marks, conventionally in the top-right corner
Two details separate a tidy header from a messy one. First, put time and marks on the same line, right-aligned — students and invigilators look for them in the same place every time. Second, make the student-detail blanks long enough to actually write in. A 2 cm line for a full name is the single most common complaint from primary teachers marking a stack of papers.
2. General instructions
The instructions block sits directly under the header, usually boxed or ruled off. Its purpose is to answer, before a student reads Question 1, every procedural question they might raise mid-exam. Three to six lines is right. Longer than that and nobody reads it.
- How many sections the paper has, and whether all are compulsory
- Whether internal choice is offered, and where
- How marks are indicated (usually: figures to the right of the question)
- Any subject-specific rule — show your working, draw diagrams in pencil, answer in complete sentences
- Reading time, if your school allots it separately
Write instructions as short imperative lines, not a paragraph. A Class 4 student reading a dense block of prose before an exam will skip it, and then ask you about it in the hall.
3. Sections and the marks split
Sections exist so the paper moves from recall to reasoning. The convention across CBSE, state boards and most private schools is to run objective questions first and long answers last, so a student who is slow to settle still banks marks early.
Here is a marks split that works for a 40-mark primary paper and scales cleanly to 50 and 80. The proportions matter more than the exact numbers — roughly a quarter objective, a third short answer, and the rest long-form.
| Section | Question type | 40 marks | 50 marks | 80 marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Objective — fill in the blanks, MCQ, true/false, match | 10 | 12 | 20 |
| B | Very short answer — one word or one line | 8 | 10 | 16 |
| C | Short answer — two to three lines | 12 | 16 | 24 |
| D | Long answer, comprehension, word problems | 10 | 12 | 20 |
A few rules of thumb when you adapt this. Keep every section a round number so the total is easy to verify. Do not let any single question carry more than about an eighth of the paper — one bad question then decides the result. And if you offer internal choice, offer it only in Section D, where the marks are large enough for the choice to be meaningful.
4. Question types, and how many of each
A paper that uses one question type all the way through is quick to set and terrible to sit. Mixing types tests different things: recall, recognition, application, and expression. It also keeps a young student engaged past the halfway mark.
| Type | Marks each | Best used for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fill in the blanks | 1 | Vocabulary, facts, definitions | Blanks with more than one correct answer |
| Multiple choice | 1 | Quick coverage of a wide syllabus | Options of obviously different lengths |
| True or false | 1 | Common misconceptions | Statements with a hidden double negative |
| Match the following | 1 per pair | Terms and their meanings | Equal column lengths make guessing easy |
| Very short answer | 1–2 | Single facts, units, names | Questions that invite a paragraph |
| Short answer | 2–3 | Explanation in two or three lines | Not enough ruled space provided |
| Long answer | 4–5 | Reasoning, description, opinion | Too many in one paper for the time given |
| Comprehension | 5–10 | Reading and inference | Passage longer than the answers it supports |
| Word problems | 2–4 | Applying a method to a situation | Unfamiliar context masking a simple sum |
| Vertical sums | 1–2 | Computation accuracy | Digits not aligned in the printed column |
One more type worth using deliberately: the match-the-following with an extra option in the right column. It removes the last-pair giveaway, where a student who knows three of four pairs gets the fourth for free.
5. Answer space, and why it decides your marking speed
Answer space is the part teachers most often get wrong, and it costs time twice — students write across the margin, and you decipher it while marking. Size the space to the answer you expect, not to what fits on the page.
- One-word answers: a single ruled blank on the same line as the question
- Two- to three-line answers: three ruled lines, spaced at least 8 mm apart for primary classes
- Long answers: six to ten ruled lines, or a note saying to use the answer sheet
- Vertical maths sums: a boxed area, full width, with nothing printed alongside
- Diagrams: an empty box with a caption line under it, never open page space
For Classes 1 to 3, use wider line spacing than feels necessary. Young children write large, and a cramped paper produces answers that run into the next question — which then reads as a wrong answer.
6. Printing and photocopying
A paper that looks right on screen can still photocopy badly. Most school copiers lose a few millimetres at the edge and flatten light greys.
- Print A4 with margins of at least 15 mm on all sides, 20 mm at the bottom
- Avoid grey fills and light rules — they wash out or turn muddy after two copy generations
- Keep a question and its answer space on the same page; a split question causes queries in the hall
- Number pages and print the total, so a missing sheet is caught before the exam and not during it
- Print one copy first and read it on paper — errors that hide on screen jump out in print
7. The checklist before you send it for copying
- Do the section marks add up to the stated total? Check by adding the right margin, not by trusting the plan.
- Is every question numbered, in sequence, with no repeats after an edit?
- Does each question have marks shown, right-aligned and consistent?
- Is the time allowed realistic — roughly one mark per minute for primary, a little less for long-answer-heavy papers?
- Does the syllabus coverage match what you actually taught this term?
- Are the instructions accurate after your last edit? Changing the section count and forgetting the instruction line is the most common slip.
- Have you read the whole paper aloud once? Ambiguity is easier to hear than to see.
A reusable template
The real time saving is not in setting one good paper. It is in never setting the format again. Build the header, instructions and section skeleton once per subject, save it, and each term you replace only the questions. Over a year that is the difference between forty minutes a paper and five.
That is the workflow PaperGen is built around. Pick a header style, add questions of any of the types above, set the marks, and the live A4 preview is exactly what prints — including the ruled answer space and the right-aligned marks column. If you already write your papers by hand, photograph them instead of retyping: the handwritten paper comes back as an editable, formatted one you can adjust and export as a PDF.