How to write Anki cloze deletion questions with a clear purpose

Write the objective before selecting text. You might want a technical term, a condition, a relationship, or an ordered step. Those tasks need different context. In an invented history note, hiding a date tests a factual association. In a science explanation, hiding the word increase may test a relationship only if the remaining sentence names the relevant variables and conditions. If you cannot say what a wrong response would reveal, clarify the objective before adding markup.

The official editing manual explains the cloze note type and its hidden spans. Use its syntax and numbering rules for the mechanics. Your editorial decision is which span should disappear and what remains visible. Avoid selecting a long paragraph simply because it was easy to highlight. A hidden paragraph can contain several independent claims with no single fair grading rule. Select a task that you can answer and assess without rereading a full lecture summary. Keep the complete source reference somewhere you can check it later.

Hide the target and inspect every remaining cue. Does an abbreviation elsewhere expand into the answer? Does a repeated phrase on the same front reveal it? Does a grammatical ending narrow the blank to a recognizable word even when the concept is unknown? Cues are not always undesirable; context is necessary for meaning. The question is whether the cue supports the intended reasoning or bypasses it. Try explaining how you selected the answer without referring to the remembered appearance of the original sentence.

For a fictional geography note, a learner hides the name of a city while leaving its familiar nickname directly beside the blank. If the learning goal is connecting the nickname to the city, that may be appropriate. If the goal is explaining the city’s role in a trade route, the prompt misses the task. Rewrite it as a direct causal question or hide a meaningful relationship instead. The same sentence can support different objectives, so judge the visible clues against the goal you wrote rather than applying a rule that every hint is bad.

Distinguish a tightly connected response from a collection of unrelated missing facts. If two missing terms form one meaningful contrast, answering them together may be defensible. If they ask for a date, a definition, and an exception, one rating collapses several outcomes. State how you will grade a partly correct response before reviewing. If that rule is awkward, separate the tasks and retain a broader explanation exercise outside the cards.

In the editing manual, cloze numbering controls which hidden spans form generated prompts. Preview every intended result after changing numbers. The source sentence can look sensible in the editor while a generated prompt exposes an answer or hides essential context. For a fictional laboratory sequence, inspect whether the visible steps reveal the missing one by position alone. Then try reconstructing the sequence on paper with a changed starting point. That exercise tests the relationship more directly than repeatedly recognizing a familiar gap in the same paragraph.

Keep the minimum accepted answer distinguishable from supporting explanation. In an invented economics card, the target is a stated condition under which a conclusion follows. The back can show the condition first and then explain why it matters. A learner should not need to decide whether every optional sentence must be recited to earn a correct rating. Long explanations are useful for repair, but the retrieval criterion should remain visible and consistent across sessions.

Preserve the source and its qualifications. If a textbook describes a relationship only under a simplifying assumption, do not remove that assumption from the question merely to make it shorter. Put enough context on the front to make the target defensible, then use the answer-side explanation to connect it to the broader lesson. After editing, attempt a variation that changes the assumption. If you still repeat the original completion automatically, the card has trained a sentence pattern more strongly than the distinction. Add conceptual practice rather than enlarging the hidden span.

Choose a small sample from different parts of the chapter. For each prompt, write the target, the necessary visible context, the potential giveaway, and the accepted answer. Include one card that has felt unusually easy and one that repeatedly fails. The easy card may have a visible answer cue; the failing card may omit a required condition. These diagnoses require different edits. Do not assume every problem can be fixed by hiding either more or less text.

Next, compare the sample with the chapter objectives. A deck can contain many well-formed blanks about names and still omit the explanation the assessment requires. Create an objective-to-task sheet: factual retrieval, explanation, and application are useful labels for this exercise. Use cards where stable recall is the goal and separate practice where the learner must choose a method or defend a claim. The sheet should reveal gaps rather than encourage a card for every sentence. If several blanks cover the same trivial distinction, remove redundancy before increasing new-card intake.

Keep the audit sheet with the chapter so later edits retain the reason each prompt exists.

For each objective on the audit sheet, include one fresh wording that does not reproduce the source sentence. Attempt it before looking at the cloze answer. If the familiar completion succeeds but the fresh wording fails, record that difference explicitly. The next task is to explain the concept in another form, rather than make the original blank cosmetically larger or add more repetitions without a diagnosis.

Inspect the exported text rather than assuming that visible sentence content carries native cloze behavior. Markup, generated directions, explanations, and source fields may need deliberate mapping. Keep a recoverable Anki copy and test one representative note with more than one hidden span. The success test is whether the receiving question has a clear front and correct answer, not whether the file uploaded without an error.

Elly’s CSV, TSV, and TXT workflow does not preserve Anki templates, cloze scheduling, media, or review history. If those behaviors are valuable, keep the native collection and evaluate Elly on a separate permitted source passage. You can draft an explicit question that tests the same objective without claiming it is a native cloze migration. Check that question against the original source, including any conditions. A source-based workspace may help with explanation while Anki remains the scheduled review tool. Let the task determine whether the extra workflow is worthwhile.