Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ncis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!att!cuuxb!dlm
From: dlm@cuuxb.ATT.COM (Dennis L. Mumaugh)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Multiple Choice Tests (was Student and Course Integrity)
Message-ID: <2409@cuuxb.ATT.COM>
Date: 23 Jan 89 20:53:20 GMT
References: <4550@homxc.UUCP> <4847@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <542@mccc.UUCP> <548@mccc.UUCP> <9286@ut-emx.UUCP> <407@laic.UUCP> <2394@cuuxb.ATT.COM> <1033@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Reply-To: dlm@cuuxb.UUCP (Dennis L. Mumaugh)
Organization: ATT Data Systems Group, Lisle, Ill.
Lines: 27

In article <1033@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> kolb@handel.colostate.edu..UUCP (Denny Kolb) writes:
>
>   So by your definition, a "good" multiple choice test is one on which
>   3 out of 5 answers may be eliminated without working the problem? :-)
>

I think you misunderstand.  In the MC test I described all of the
answers were reasonable and the ONLY way one could be sure which
was correct was to work the problem.  The answers were structured
so guessing was not possible as the numbers all seemed correct.

Sometimes one could guess because the correction factors were
either plus or minus and hence one could figure out which way
they were to be applied and pick the correct number.  Guess what,
the instructor wasn't interested in the exact value, but whether
you could decide the direction of the correction factor.  Hence
"guessing" the right direction was the only thing wanted.  Also
there were questions in which the only thing was the fixing of
the decimal point.

I was more amused in physics when I had a problem about viscosity
and derived the correct equation using dimensional analysis and
got one point off because I didn't have the correct constant for
the multiplier.
-- 
=Dennis L. Mumaugh
 Lisle, IL       ...!{att,lll-crg}!cuuxb!dlm  OR cuuxb!dlm@arpa.att.com