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Tests (...........sicle! XD)

Amethyst

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But seriously...what sort of tests are you most comfortable taking/which tests are easiest for you to take?

Multiple Choice? True or False? Essay tests? Mathematical/Problem Solving exams? Other types of tests?

Do you feel like some tests are able to measure someone's intellectual ability and hard work put into a class better than other types of tests?
 

Randomnity

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Multiple choice are both the easiest (lazy teachers) and hardest (teachers that like to trick you). I've very rarely had true or false on anything serious. I guess it's just like a multiple choice but can be tricky if things are "mostly" true or false. Essay questions are hardest for me, mathematical ones are easiest.

I'm not sure what the best kind of test is, but the most common exam type in my field is part multiple choice, part short answer, sometimes with a long answer. Short answer is probably the most efficient way to extract knowledge from students.
 

Randomnity

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Multiple choice are both the easiest (lazy teachers) and hardest (teachers that like to trick you). I've very rarely had true or false on anything serious. I guess it's just like a multiple choice but can be tricky if things are "mostly" true or false. Essay questions are hardest for me, mathematical ones are easiest.

I'm not sure what the best kind of test is, but the most common exam type in my field is part multiple choice, part short answer, sometimes with a long answer. Short answer is probably the most efficient way to extract knowledge from students.
 

Amethyst

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Haha, multiple choice is the WORST!!!
Mostly because I'm the one who second, third guesses myself, where I'm usually 99% right the first time I answer something, I'll fail the test because I freaked out and thought I got it wrong. :doh:

It happened today, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die, because there were more implications to failing that test then just failing it.

I've gotten exams back where the professor actually wrote this on the test: I don't understand how you think, how can you get all the easy questions wrong, but get all the hard ones right? Are you okay? :laugh: :rofl1:

I would always get the hardest questions right, even when no one else did, but I couldn't answer the basic multiple choice, because I just DON'T GET IT.
It's also why I had very low SAT scores (and sub-par ACT scores).
 

skylights

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ew, i hate multiple choice. there's so much more bullshit room on essay questions.

anyway... what happens: you fail (or get something really bad you don't like). you get freaked out. you possibly cry. then you retake the class, it's easy, you get your grade changed and your GPA goes back up. but you always kind of hate/regret the bad grade.
 

Such Irony

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True and false was the worst for me even though you have a 50/50 chance. The questions encountered were ambiguous. If there's anything I've learned, is that if you see a question on the lines of _____________ is *always __________________, it's probably false.

The multiple choice tests I've taken were still ambiguous at times but to a lesser degree than True and False.

I have mixed feelings about essay tests. It's true that its easier to bullshit your way through and you can explain your reasoning. On the other hand, sometimes I'm just too lazy to write out a long drawn out response and the grading for these questions is more subjective.

I like the mathematical problem solving ones the best as long as I don't get too hung up on having to show all of my work.
 

GZA

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I'm good with multiple choice and essay questions. i find I can write essays in a test situation very calmly, and everything I need to say just comes to me. I often do well when I probably havn't studied enough!
 
N

NPcomplete

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I like math-like exams in general. When I have to write essays, I find that I either am stuck (in which case I go into BS mode) or have so much to say and not enough time that my essay will probably be incomplete.

When we used to get multiple choice exams, I would do well only if I remember everything from the course. Some profs/teachers were sneaky enough to have a question on a specific word that only some people would remember.
 

strychnine

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But seriously...what sort of tests are you most comfortable taking/which tests are easiest for you to take?

Multiple Choice? True or False? Essay tests? Mathematical/Problem Solving exams? Other types of tests?

Do you feel like some tests are able to measure someone's intellectual ability and hard work put into a class better than other types of tests?

I like multiple choice for factual courses, because it turns out that the question itself triggers my otherwise pathetic memory (low Si, maybe?). Then I can usually get the answer quickly, and I rush through and never go back over it! I know I'll change answer to the wrong ones lol so I never double check.

I've never had a pure T/F test...that seems easy. 50% from random guessing?

I like essay tests for all non factual courses, because I need space to argue my point.

But I study chemistry, so the vast majority of my tests are of the math/problem solving variety. I don't mind.
 

Owlesque

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I had some of the worst multiple choice tests in my bio classes. They had nested questions, so within your typical a/b/c/d options, there would be i/ii/iii/iv. Option "a" might say "i and iii" and "b" would be "i, ii, and iii" so you would agonise whether whatever corresponded to ii was valid and second guess yourself in the process. They would design it so all of the options were relevant to the biological process in question, but you had to decide which ones directly influenced it... a nightmare. They also quickly caught on to us using the process of elimination and made it so that was impossible as well.

I'm fine with T/F because the ones with "always" and "never" are dead give aways, but we'd always have to correct the false ones so you actually had to know why they were wrong.

In classes I'm interested in, I tend to do best with short answer questions because I'll ace the ones I know, and I'm not screwed if I don't know a couple of them and can do my best to bullshit at least a mark or two from each.

Full essay questions are okay as long as the question is open-ended enough for me to skew it to a topic I can write about at length.

I'm pretty good with diagrams and labelling tests as well, and I have a slightly masochistic love for bellringers because as nerve-wracking as they are, you don't have long enough to second guess and screw yourself over.
 

funkadelik

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I had some of the worst multiple choice tests in my bio classes. They had nested questions, so within your typical a/b/c/d options, there would be i/ii/iii/iv. Option "a" might say "i and iii" and "b" would be "i, ii, and iii" so you would agonise whether whatever corresponded to ii was valid and second guess yourself in the process.

Did you take IB Biology? I did and all the tests were like this. The final HL Biology exam was a bitch! I didn't do badly, but I didn't do as well as I thought I would.

As for the OP questions, short answer are my forte. So are the math/problem solving ones. They're also the two I find most interesting/fun/whathaveyou.
 

Amethyst

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Did you take IB Biology? I did and all the tests were like this. The final HL Biology exam was a bitch! I didn't do badly, but I didn't do as well as I thought I would.

As for the OP questions, short answer are my forte. So are the math/problem solving ones. They're also the two I find most interesting/fun/whathaveyou.

You poor soul... :hug:

I couldn't do IB science, because I couldn't get through the IB math class...but then again, not many people did. :doh:
 

Tabula

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It depends. I always liked multi-choice on math tests because I suck huge donkey balls at math, so when I'd have to figure out the problem myself, there is so much I can get wrong. At least with multiple choice, if all else fails, I can choose the one that looks right to me. :laugh: But I know that's obviously not the best way to test that.

But I HATE multiple choice in lit classes or any other class really, where things are so much more open to interpretation. It seems like by just having a multiple choice test in that class, it's missing the point. I don't think that "facts from the story/poem/whatever" are most important, and that's all you can really test with that sort of format. That, or some agreed-upon interpretation that I almost never actually agree with. :dry: So, essays are best for me most of the time.

I like the short open response format for science tests combined with my lab report grades, which is how most of my teachers did it when I was in school. They'd give a bunch of hypotheticals too, where you'd have to give reasons for why X would happen and Y wouldn't, etc. I really liked those.
 

Owlesque

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Did you take IB Biology? I did and all the tests were like this. The final HL Biology exam was a bitch! I didn't do badly, but I didn't do as well as I thought I would.

My high school didn't offer the IB program until after I graduated; my first and second year university biology classes had all the killer multiple choice.
 
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