It looks like we all have too many things we don't like to do. Dana thought of another really good one, having a root canal. Ouch.
This weeks question is regards to a written exam I had to take to get a certification for my job. It made me think back to my college days of racking my brain about a subject I knew I read about, but couldn't remember the right answer. Trying to visualize the sentence in my book defining my question. But it made me think of what kind of exam questions I do like the least.
My all time worst was the dreaded essay question. If you know the topic you are golden. If you don't, you can ramble on for a couple pages and convince yourself that you have fooled the instructor into believing you studied the topic. But from all the attempts I tried at doing that, they usually didn't work. Crystal, you would probably have some feedback on that one after grading exams.
My list would go as follows:
1. True/False - Alright 50% chance of being right, I'll take those odds in Vegas any day.
2. Multiple Choice - 25%, not bad, unless the teacher is tricky and gives you 5 answers per question.
3. Matching - hey at least I have a list of answers to choose from.
4. Story problems, oh man, I hope I don't have to F.O.I.L. then figuring out what time that train will arrive in Philadelphia will get a whole lot harder. (See Abby for F.O.I.L instructions)
5. Fill in the blank. Some say fish in the barrel, I say dead in the water. If only a smiley face would cut it for a correct answer. :) "It's Herbie Hancock".
6. Essay questions. As explained above, usually a train wreck is more pleasant to look at than one of my essay question answers.
Jason
9 comments:
Oh the taking of tests. I have had quite the experience writing tests now- which is way hard- so I do have some input. I tend to be optimistic and weird so in my optimism, I think True sounds better and the weirdness that is me causes me to write more true questions than false. I try to change that up from time to time, but it is harder than one might think!
Multiple choice are students' favorites (because of public schools, the IOWA tests, SATs, GRE, MCAT, GMAT and LSAT prep... but I try to break them of this habit by making them REALLY, REALLY hard. Not by adding 5-6 choices for each, but answers that are similar enough that most would really have to think about it. Normally students come out wanting more essay from me than multiple choice.
Fill-in... I use this for anatomy questions and trust me- it aint pretty considering the anatomical parts we study and the vast variety of names mommies and daddies everywhere (not to mention 50 cent) have taught the young people. I now say "If you can not imagine me up here saying it, dont you dare write it down!" That was a fun learn-by-experience situation.
Essay can be the same, especially when you want an intellegent "infertility" discussion but guess what... most professors read the thesis sentence, scan for proper use of key terms and make sure the essay is ended well, that is it. ;-)
I personally always loved essay because I felt like the others were not as challenging (aside from the GRE) for the most part, but I was a big dork like that.
Now I feel compelled to put those syllabi together for the fall... and writing my lab manual... and looking over my tests from last semester...
Wow, you just reminded me of how out of practice I am for what I'm about to get back into! I used to be really comfortable with taking tests since I worked in the Testing Center. I guess watching people suffer through it made me less prone? Whatever.
Essays were my least favorite too, but lucky me, I hardly ever had any since most of my classes were numbers-based. I get the feeling that's about to change...
I like multiple choice best, most of the time. Except I once had a teacher who removed all chance from the question by giving about 8 options for each question (A, B, C, A&B, A&C, B&C, all, none). When I worked at the Testing Center during finals week, I'd wear a t-shirt with my mantra: "When in doubt, pick C." I still follow that.
dana~ how is (was?) your book? I saw a bunch of people in Cleveland with stickers saying they had theirs when we got into town at about 1am.
I like matching....the answers are there... but then it can get tricky sometimes. Pretty much I just dislike test in general :) Does that count?? ha.
Dana-It's Liz (murphy). did you guys move?? If so where to? I lost track of you when Eric and I moved into my parents place for the summer. Let me know! I have my bus. blog started and will have personal one started soon. The kids are so super cute!
Liz
Wow Liz, hey! Your pictures are great! I especially love your sister's maternity shots! I didn't know you were doing photography.
Crystal, I loved the book! There were some parts where I thought, "This is just too weird," but I can't get over how creative she is!! With this book I totally had the feeling I had with the Harry Potter books where I thought, "How does she come up with this stuff?" It was good. You should definitely read it, I think there was a lot more development and creativity in this one.
Oh yeah, and we moved mid June to just outside of San Antonio. It's so hot, but we love it so far!
True & False are the best. You always have a 50/50 chance of getting it right.
oh crystal, I can tell you are a professor. Overthinking those test questions to make them soooooo hard. But that is the way it is supposed to be I guess.
But good response.
Jason
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