Teaching and Learning Resource Center

Sample Bloom’s Verbs

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a useful tool for writing clear outcomes for your course or pinpointing what you want to measure with your assessments of student learning.  The original taxonomy (1956) was published by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues with the aim of guiding the development of learning outcomes and assessments. It included measurable verbs to describe observable knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors and abilities across six areas: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.  

The revised taxonomy from 2001 updates Bloom's original categories to the following: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. By planning your outcomes and assessments using measurable verbs for these categories, you can identify and clearly communicate what students must do to demonstrate their learning. 

Consider the action verbs in the chart below next time you plan outcomes or assignments for your course. 

Remember 

Recall content and information. 

Cite • Define • Give • Label • List • Match • Name • Recall • Record • Relate 

Remember • Select • State • Tell • Underline • Write  

Understand 

Explain ideas and concepts. 

Describe • Discuss • Explain • Express • Identify • Locate • Recognize • Report 

Restate • Review • Translate • Understand

Apply 

Use information in other situations and contexts. 

Apply • Assign • Demonstrate • Dramatize • Employ • Illustrate • Interpret • Operate 

Practice • Schedule • Shop • Sketch • Use

Analyze 

Break information into parts and explore relationships between ideas. 

Analyze • Appraise • Calculate • Categorize • Compare • Contrast • Criticize 

Debate • Diagram • Differentiate • Distinguish • Examine • Experiment • Inspect 

Inventory • Question • Relate • Solve • Test 

Evaluate 

Justify perspectives, decisions or courses of action. 

Appraise • Assess • Check • Choose • Critique • Decide • Discriminate 

Estimate • Evaluate • Grade • Inspect • Judge • Measure • Monitor 

Rank/Rate • Review • Revise • Score • Select • Value 

Create 

Generate new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things. 

Adapt • Build • Change • Choose • Combine • Compile • Compose

Construct • Create • Design • Develop • Discuss • Elaborate • Estimate

Formulate • Imagine • Improve • Invent • Make up • Modify • Originate

Plan • Predict • Propose • Solve • Suppose • Test • Theorize