This practical guide provides a simple, useful reference to commonly raised questions about medical student assessment. The first part of the book provides succinct information on the general aspects of assessment such as purpose and principles of assessment; technical terms such as validity, reliability, and utility of assessment instruments; and how to choose assessment instruments for a given purpose. Individual assessment instruments are treated in the second part of the guide. The authors focus on about 20 selected assessment instruments currently in use or promising new instruments that are likely to get increased acceptance in future. For each instrument a general description is given, followed by discussion on its uses, limitations, psychometric characteristics, and recommendations for medical teachers. The reference section contains highly selective and well-researched resources, annotated and classified according to their usefulness. Many of these resources are available free on the Internet.