I would like to recreate something like this

To make my students' papers are realistic and true to the real thing as possible. How would a header like that be achieved, would it be with the \maketitle command? And how are "MAT1511 Analytical Geometry" and the date aligned separately?

You can set the title in a center environment, with the necessary formatting (perhaps \large\bfseries). Spacing for the subject and date could be via inserting a horizontal space (like \qquad, or \hspace{2em}).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsfonts}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\bfseries\large
UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

FACULTY OF SCIENCE

Department of Mathematics

B.SC.(Hons.) Year I

January 2013 Examination Session

\bigskip

\normalfont\normalsize
11.45a.m.~--~1.45p.m.
\end{center}

\noindent
\begin{tabular}{p{\dimexpr\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}}
\hline
\end{tabular}

\begin{enumerate}
\item
\begin{enumerate}
\item
Define the \textit{scalar triple product} $[\mathbf{x}, \mathbf{y}, \mathbf{z}]$ for vectors $\mathbf{x}, \mathbf{y}, \mathbf{z} \in \mathbb{R}^3$, and show
$[\mathbf{z}, \mathbf{x}, \mathbf{y}] = [\mathbf{y}, \mathbf{z}, \mathbf{x}].$

\item
\ldots
\end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}


I would never go for document class article. Much beter, with predefined questions is \documentclass{exam}

Depending on what you want, you can find

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,addpoints]{exam}

\pointsinmargin
%\pointsinrightmargin
%\bracketedpoints
\boxedpoints
%\noboxedpoints

\parindent=0pt
\title{UNIVERSITY OF MALTA\\FACULTY OF SCIENCE \vspace{-1em}}
\author{Department of Mathematics\\B.SC.(Hons.) YEAR 1\\January 2013 Examination Session\\MAT1511 Analytical Geometry \qquad January 25, 2016}
\date{11.45 a.m. - 1.45 p.m }

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\hrule
\begin{questions}
\question[1]
\begin{parts}
\part lqkjfmlk
\part mlqkjfsmd
\part qdsfq
\end{parts}

\question[5] qdslfkjq m
\begin{solutionordottedlines}[2cm]
\end{solutionordottedlines}

\question[2] Multiple choice
\begin{checkboxes}
\choice qdsf
\choice dsfq
\CorrectChoice If you delete the \% before the printanswers, the document will show you the answers \ldots
\end{checkboxes}
\end{questions}

\end{document}


End to learn some more: http://www-math.mit.edu/~psh/exam/examdoc.pdf

So I adapted my answer... with the title of the exam. Therefore I think you should use the \maketitle command that is build in a class.

In the preamble you can change those things, depending on the exam.

(off topic: you really should test the print answer on and off mode, so you can see that you can put every answer in your examination or tests. Just switch to on and off and you are done)

• The main question here is about the heading, not really the questions within an examination. Could you include some heading the replicates what the OP wants in your answer? – Werner Jan 25 '16 at 21:41
• @Werner indeed, I will adapt it this evening. Now 8 hours teaching. – Arne Timperman Jan 26 '16 at 6:45

There are probably some more elegant LaTeX structures for this, but I'd just use a center environment with \obeylines, something like this:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\Large\obeylines
UNIVERSITY OF STACK
FACULTY OF EXCHANGE
Department of TeX Questions
January 2016 Examination Session
\medskip
\hbox to \textwidth{TEX3142 Advanced Typesetting \hss 25 Jan 2016}
\medskip
\large
16.15 p.m. --- 17.45 p.m.
\end{center}
\bigskip

\noindent
Answer as much as you can.
\hrule

\end{document}


## Notes

I've used a few old fashioned bits of plain TeX here:

• \obeylines makes each line end behave like a paragraph end. Its effect is contained within the center environment here.

• \quad puts in a "quad"-sized space

• \medskip adds a medium amount of space between paragraphs

• \hbox to \textwidth{...} gives you a box that is set to the \textwidth. The \hss inside it does a "horizontal stretch or shrink" to give you the right amount of space in the middle.