What increases students knowledge of the topic?

One of my reactions from Chapter 2 was the comment on p. 31 that stated short answer and extended response questions seem to increase student knowledge of the topic. It was discussed that note taking was not effective, and I can see that argument. However, comprehension questions are not supposed to be effective either. If the question content is on the lower end of Bloom's Taxonomy such as Knowledge or Comprehension, then I agree. If the questions are formulated on the upper end such as judgement, synthesis or analysis, then the answers require a lot of thought, critical thinking, and take more time to formulate an answer than just spewing out information. When I make up any type of question sheet for my students, I always try to include both lower end and upper end questions. SA and ER questions can be these higher level thinking questions so the comment on page 31 is only somewhat true.