Launching August 2026.
QI Tool™ · Question Intelligence

The questions you ask shape the thinking students do.

QI Tool™ is an educator-facing system that analyzes classroom and exam questions across six original ELM thinking levels — so instructors can see, at a glance, the kind of cognition their assessments are actually demanding.

The six ELM thinking levels

An original cognitive ladder. Not Bloom's Taxonomy.

The ELM thinking levels were developed inside the Effort Learning Model™ to map the actual cognitive moves students make. They overlap with no other framework and are designed for classroom use.

Level 1
Surface

Recognition and recall. The facts as stated.

Level 2
Clarify

Restating and defining. Making meaning explicit.

Level 3
Apply

Using a concept inside a familiar context.

Level 4
Examine

Breaking apart relationships, comparing, contrasting.

Level 5
Evaluate

Judging quality, weighing evidence, defending a stance.

Level 6
Create

Generating new structure, synthesis, original work.

How it works

Drop in your questions. See the thinking they require.

  1. Step 01
    Upload or paste

    Paste a quiz, exam, problem set, or discussion prompt.

  2. Step 02
    Auto-classify

    Each question is mapped to one of the six ELM thinking levels.

  3. Step 03
    See the distribution

    A clear breakdown of where the cognitive demand actually lives.

Why educators use it

To develop deeper thinking — not test for surface recall.

Most assessments cluster at Surface and Clarify without anyone noticing. QI Tool™ makes the imbalance visible, so instructors can deliberately raise the cognitive ceiling of what they ask.