Using computer-based monitoring systems that rely on tests could be the most effective way of knowledge evaluation. The problem of objective knowledge assessment by means of testing takes on a new dimension in the context of new paradigms in education. The analysis of the existing test methods enabled us to conclude that tests with selected response and expandable selected response do not always allow for evaluating students' knowledge objectively and this undercuts the effect of pedagogical evaluation of their cognitive activity as well as the teaching and learning processes generally. Authors propose an expert knowledge monitoring and evaluation system based on an integral method of knowledge evaluation. This method is built on a new approach to constructing test items and responses to them, which give students an opportunity to freely construct their responses, and presupposes a set of criteria for their assessment. Proposed method makes it possible to expand the functions of tests and in this way approximate the test grade to the real level of students' knowledge. Theoretical and empirical data presented in the paper can be used for improving the monitoring and evaluation of knowledge in social sciences and the humanities and thus raising the quality of education.