Bloom’s Taxonomy Interpreted for Mathematics
Lindsey Shorser
This document contains a description of Bloom’s Taxonomy, a educational
tool developed by Benjamin S. Bloom (1913-1999) that ranks the relative cogni-
tive complexity of various educational objectives. This taxonomy is often used
as an aid when create test questions and assignments. Following the description,
you will find Lindsey Shorser’s interpretation of Bloom’s Taxonomy in the con-
text of mathematical understanding with examples drawn from undergraduate
level topics.
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Skills:
•Knowledge - retention of terminology, facts, conventions, methodologies,
structures, principles, etc.
•Comprehension - grasping of meaning, translation, extrapolation, inter-
pretation of facts, making comparisons, etc.
•Application - problem solving, usage of information in a new way
•Analysis - making inferences and supporting them with evidence, identi-
fication of patterns
•Synthesis - derivation of abstract relations, prediction, generalization, cre-
ation of new ideas
•Evaluation - judgement of validity, usage of a set of criteria to make con-
clusions, discrimination
Questions that encourage each of these skills often begin with:
•Knowledge: List, define, describe, show, name, what, when, etc.
•Comprehension: Summarize, compare and contrast, estimate, discuss, etc.
•Application: Apply, calculate, complete, show, solve, modify, etc.
•Analysis: Separate, arrange, classify, explain, etc.
•Synthesis: Integrate, modify, substitute, design, create, What if..., formu-
late, generalize, prepare, etc.
•Evaluation: Assess, rank, test, explain, discriminate, support, etc.
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