Noting that the predominant questions about characters in literature exams steer students away from reflection about the characters, this booklet on constructing exam questions analyzes current failures in character studies and reviews existing starting-points for an alternate approach. The firt section--on limiting assumptions in current character questions--discusses how wording misdirects response and the students' choices of the personal and impersonal stance, the informality/formality of the relation with the reader, and the degree of assertiveness/tentativeness. The second section--on emerging alternatives--discusses responses that start from the particulars of the characters, looks at key words and their implications and assumptions, and summarizes the kinds of guidance teachers should offer their students before they write their character sketches, in terms of writing from a personal stance, the role of the teacher as reader, dealing with the general and the particular, and keeping character assessments exploratory and tentative. Finally, the booklet discusses suggestions for working these ideas out in practice. (EL)