"The differences between questions with right answers and questions that promote inquiry point to two different dimensions of college-level training: knowledge-getting versus knowledge-making. By knowledge-getting, we mean the acquisition of the new knowledge taught in every course you take. Every day you learn new facts, ideas, concepts, theories, and methods associated with the disciplines you are studying. Knowledge-getting entails transfer of knowledge from experts to new learners via textbooks, lectures, and homework activities. To do well in college generally and on exams specifically, you need to do well in knowledge-getting.
College-level writing assignments, however, often focus on knowledge-making rather than knowledge-getting. They ask you to apply what you have learned to new problems---that is, to subject-matter problems that may or may not have an agreed-upon answer. Such assignments ask you to make your own contribution to a conversation---to discover or invent something new to say, to add your voice to a discussion, to make new knowledge" (John D. Ramage, et.al. The Allyn & Bloom Guide to Writing. 8th ed., Pearson, 2017).
