Since 1989 I have served on eight American Chemical Society (ACS) Exam Committees. These committees work under the auspices of the ACS Exams Institute, currently located at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
Each committee is a group of about 15-20 faculty from a wide variety of institutions. These committees work over the course of 2-3 years, meeting 3-4 times, and writing and reviewing questions furiously between meetings. From an initial pool of as many as 600 trial questions, a committee eventually hones this to about 75 questions that are used in the exam. These exams are sold to faculty world-wide and provide a reasonably objective chemistry exam coupled with norming data.
1991 First Term General Chemistry Examination Committee
1997General Chemistry Examination Committee
2006 Second Term General Chemistry Examination Committee; Chair of Exam Committee
2008 DUCK (Diagnostic of Undergraduate Chemical Knowledge) Examination Committee
An overview of the exams can be seen at: Exams Institute