The course GEOB33 is part of the introductory course package on the Geology Program at Lund University. Here we aim to develop an assessment package that shifts students focus from repeating lecture content to deep understanding and application of acquired knowledge to complex geoscience systems, that is more closely related to working as a geologist. The object is to achieve assessment tasks that are clearly linked to the curriculum, with expectations clearly conveyed to the students at the beginning of the course. We suggest a combination of assessment where declarative knowledge necessary to the course curriculum is assessed using an unseen written exam approach, but where higher levels of understanding is tested with a new assessment task in the field, following a week-long field course. Since quantification of student learning and separation of students (i.e., not only group examination) hinges on assessment, we suggest the employment of a clear grading matrix, which is partly shared with the students before the examination, increasing communication on teachers’ expectations.