Exercise book

A common exercise book

An exercise book is a notebook that is used in schools to copy down schoolwork and notes. A student will usually have a different exercise book for each separate lesson.

The exercise book format is different for some subjects: for the majority of subjects, the exercise book will contain lined paper with a margin, but for other subjects such as mathematics, the exercise book will contain squared or blank paper to aid in the drawing of graphs, tables or other diagrams.

Exercise books may act as a primary record of students learning efforts. For younger pupils, books are often collected at the end of each lesson for review, scoring or grading. Loose worksheets may be pasted into the book so that they are bound with other work.

In some schools, exercise books may be colour-coded depending on the subject. For example, Biology might be green and Maths blue.

The exercise book also called version book historically, khata in India, scribbler on the east coast of Canada, and copy book in Ireland. The US equivalent is the composition book, which traditionally has a distinctive cover pattern.

Size

In Australia, the traditional size of a school exercise book is 7 by 9 inches (180 mm × 230 mm), which may be approximated by B5 (176 × 250 mm). Larger A4 (previously foolscap) notebooks are also used. In Britain, A5 is the common small size, with A4 the larger size. Composition books in the USA are typically , with some variation.

Czech Republic and Slovakia

Exercise books manufactured in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are labeled by three digit codes that encode their size, number of pages and ruling.

The first numeral stands for the size:

• 4 for A4 paper,
• 5 for A5 paper,
• 6 for A6 paper.

Second numeral stands for the number of pages:

• 1 pro 10 pages,
• 2 pro 20 pages,
• 4 pro 40 pages,
• 6 pro 60 pages,
• 8 pro 80 pages.

Third numeral stands for the ruling:

• 0 for blank exercise book,
• 1 for linked paper -- lines at 20 mm,
• 2 for linked paper -- lines at 16 mm,
• 3 for linked paper -- lines at 12 mm,
• 4 for linked paper -- lines at 8 mm,
• 5 for squared papers -- squares 5 x 5 mm,
• 10 for squared paper -- squares 10 x 10 mm

See also

• Composition book