Composition books

An exercise book or composition 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 or subject.

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 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 Algebra blue.

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

The traditional size of a school exercise book in Australia 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.

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:

The second numeral stands for the number of pages:

The third numeral stands for the ruling:

Copy books sold in Ireland usually come with 32, 40, or 88 pages. The pages can be blank, ruled, or squared.

School exercise books in New Zealand generally conform to standard NZS 8132:1984 (Specification for school stationery). An alphanumeric code is used to describe the exercise book's binding, format and size.

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