Multiple Choice Tests

If you’re in school and you’ve managed to learn how to read, you probably have to deal with multiple choice tests.  Though they’ve become a little scarcer in the very early and very late levels of education, and perhaps in some charter schools, multiple choice tests are stand-by assessment devices for most educators in America.  Why are they so popular?  Part of the reason has to do with the fact that multiple choice tests are extremely easy to create and extremely easy to grade.  In a multiple choice test a teacher or professor can decide on a “right” answer (though reality may be a bit more arbitrary) and give students credit for choosing the right answer out of a group of four and not give any credit to students who choose the wrong answer.  This form of assessment leaves no gray area, making the tests extremely easy to grade, even doing some of them automatically on specially designed computers.  That way a large number of students can be assessed at once without creating an enormous workload for an educator.

Though other forms of assessment like essay exams may give educators a better idea of how well students understand and absorb the assigned material, they are much harder to grade.  Unlike multiple choice tests, essay exams are almost all gray area, and though most educators know the difference between a terrible essay and a great essay, it’s tough to discern between two “good” essays.  Though few teachers would like to admit it, grading essay exams is largely a subjective act, and different educators could vary considerably when grading the same essay.

Since multiple choice tests are so common, both in the classroom, in college entrance exams, and in graduate school entrance exams, it always helps to know how you can improve your score.  When looking at some multiple choice questions the correct answer should (hopefully) jump out at you as being obviously the right choice.  If this is the case, choose the answer that jumped out at you and go on.  If you’re only pretty sure you’ve seen the right answer right away, read the other options just in case you find a better one.  If not, go with your gut reaction and move on.  Don’t second guess yourself, as your brain will instinctively let you know if you’ve found the answer that fits.  If you’re not sure of the answer, eliminate any choices that obviously aren’t correct.  If you still don’t know which to choose among the remaining options, just guess and move on, coming back to the question later if you happen to have an epiphany along the way through the rest of the test.