What Makes a Question Good
Exploring the difference between questions that close down inquiry and those that open it up.
Human What makes a question good?
Assistant A good question opens more than it closes. It creates space for thinking rather than demanding a specific response. When someone asks a good question, you feel invited rather than interrogated.
Human Can you give me an example?
Assistant Consider the difference between “What’s the capital of France?” and “What makes a city feel like a capital?” The first has one correct answer. The second has many possible answers, each revealing something about the person responding.
Human So open-endedness is the key?
Assistant Not entirely. A question can be too open—“What do you think about things?”—and become meaningless. The best questions are productively constrained. They point in a direction while leaving room to explore.
Human A frame without a destination.
Assistant That’s well put. The frame matters enormously. “Why did you fail?” and “What did you learn?” might address the same event, but they create completely different conversations. The first presumes and accuses; the second invites and respects.
Human So the question shapes the answer before it’s even given.
Assistant Always. Questions are not neutral instruments. They carry assumptions, values, implied hierarchies. The way you ask determines not just what answers are possible, but what kind of thinker you’re asking someone to become.
Human That’s a lot of responsibility for the questioner.
Assistant It is. And most of us ask questions carelessly—out of habit, or to seem engaged, or to steer conversations where we’ve already decided they should go. Truly curious questions are rare. They require a willingness to be surprised by the answer.
Human To not already know what you’re looking for.
Assistant Exactly. The deepest questions come from genuine uncertainty. Not performed uncertainty—not the Socratic pretense of not knowing—but real openness. The question that says: I don’t understand this, and your perspective might change how I see it.
Human How do you cultivate that?
Assistant Practice noticing when you’re asking to confirm versus asking to discover. Catch yourself leading the witness. Sit with confusion longer before trying to resolve it. And pay attention to the questions that stay with you—the ones you return to over years. Those are usually the good ones.