How to ask better questions

1. Discuss the questions below.

• What does the following quote mean in your opinion?

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”
Voltaire
• Do you prefer asking or answering questions? Why?
• What professionals are good at asking questions? lawyers, teachers, journalists,
etc.
• What kind of people should be good at answering questions? e.g. politicians
• In what situations do we ask questions?

2. Questions can be used for various reasons. Watch a video [http://bit.ly/Effective-

Questions] (to 01:34) and complete the gaps with one word each.

a) Obtaining information is just one outcome of questioning.

b) Questions can be used for controlling a conversation during an argument or a
negotiation.
c) Showing an interest in other people can help to build relationships.
d) Questions can be used to explore people’s personalities or to diagnose problems as
well as being the common way of testing people’s knowledge.
e) Questions can also be used to encourage further thought or used to emphasize a
point.
f) Questions can be used to promote conversation amongst people who don’t know
each other.

3. Choose 3 situations from ex. 2 and write one question for each of them.

Example: Showing interest: What do you like doing for fun?

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

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Licensed to Igor Gorbus (175833)

 How to ask better questions

4. Watch the next part of the video (to 02:40). Then, mark the following questions
Open (O) or Closed (C).

a) What does it mean? O

b) When is your birthday? C
c) Does your sister have the same interests as you? C
d) What happened after I left? O
e) What kinds of difficulties have you had when doing this? O
f) Who will you choose? C

5. Ask your partner a series of open and closed questions on one of the topics
below.

holiday last weekend next lesson

shopping travel work

Example: (LAST WEEKEND)

What did you do last weekend? (O) I went to a bar with a friend.
What time did you arrive there? (C) Just after 8 p.m.
What do you like drinking when you’re at All type of drinks but my favourite ones
a bar? (O) are Piña Coladas.
Did you drink any Piña Coladas last
weekend? (C) Nope.

6. Watch the last part of the video (from 02:40) and decide whether the sentences
below are True (T) or False (F).

a) Leading questions are sometimes used to manipulate people. T

b) If you want to get a general answer, you can use probing questions. F
c) The funnelling technique involves asking for details and moving to general
questions or the other way round. T
d) All rhetorical questions are unanswerable. F

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Licensed to Igor Gorbus (175833)

 How to ask better questions

7. Match the question types in the box to the example questions below.

leading questions probing questions

rhetorical questions

a) Is the pope Catholic? RQ

b) Did you like our product or did you love it? LQ
c) Would you say you’re really satisfied with what the government is doing? LQ
d) What were you thinking about when you said that this project would fail? PQ
e) Why do these things always happen to me? RQ
f) What, specifically, will you do next week? PQ

8. Follow the instructions below and ask your partner questions. Use the funnelling
technique to get as much information as possible.

SITUATION 1

STUDENT A

You’re a police investigator at the scene of a car accident. Ask the driver about the
accident starting with this question: “How many people were in the car with you?”

STUDENT B

Read the text you got from the teacher and get ready to answer some questions.

SITUATION 2

STUDENT A

Read the text you got from the teacher and get ready to answer some questions.

STUDENT B

You’re a police investigator at the scene of a bar fight. Ask one of the participants what
happened starting with this question: “How many people were involved in the fight?”

Copyrights by ESL Brains

Licensed to Igor Gorbus (175833)

 How to ask better questions

SITUATION #1 (STUDENT B)

You’ve just had a car accident. It seems that nobody has

been hurt… so that’s good news. You don’t remember
what happened exactly, but you were on the way to your
grandmother who lives in Austin, Texas. You were going
there with your spouse and 2 kids because you got a call
from a hospital in Austin around 10 pm that evening, informing you that your grandma was
in serious condition.

You quickly packed the car and you and your family left your home in Houston. The
accident happened after about 60 minutes while you were talking on the phone with your
brother. It was late at night and you weren’t really focused on the road as you thought
about your grandmother and talked with your brother. Probably, the fact that you were also
drinking coffee while driving could have had something to do with the fact that you didn’t
see the other car in time and didn’t brake fast enough.

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SITUATION #2 (STUDENT A)

Wow, what a night! You’ve just been in a bar fight but let’s start
from the beginning. Your friend Bobby called you a few hours
ago, probably around 6 pm. He asked if you wanted to hang
out later on and you decided to meet at your favourite bar –
Maclaren’s at 9 pm. You arrived about 45 minutes late
because the bus you took broke down. Bobby was sitting at
the bar with some strangers talking and drinking. You joined
them and had 2-3 beers, talked and laughed but never really learnt their names. About an
hour later, Bobby was telling some funny story and accidently stepped on some guy. He
apologized but that guy wasn’t too happy and said something to Bobby. In return, Bobby
just punched that guy in the face! Things quickly escalated from that point. I think at one
point there were 10-12 guys in the fight. It all happened quickly and the fight finished in a
few moments as security stepped in and stopped everything. Nothing really happened to
you because you hid behind the bar, so technically you were in a fight, but in practice you
didn’t hit anybody.

Copyrights by ESL Brains

Licensed to Igor Gorbus (175833)

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