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I have a story on this. Our teacher in electronics was constantly heckled by us to do a multiple-choice test "just once" for us. So he did! But with the caveat
by lolc 7y ago
I have a story on this. Our teacher in electronics was constantly heckled by us to do a multiple-choice test "just once" for us. So he did! But with the caveat that we had to show the work. Negating the whole reason why we wanted that test. The bastard.
Comes the test and one of the questions required calculating total resistance of a grid of resistors. The way the resistors were arranged made it impossible for the result not to be an integer. Except there was one tiny half-ohm resistor in series. And there was only one answer that was not an integer.
So I wrote two steps: The reasoning that the result can only be an integer plus 0.5. Then the reasoning that only one answer was left. I likely spent more time on that than I would have on the calculation. Still I got full points and an extra smiley so it was worth it.
- edflsafoiewq 7y agoIn math you sometimes see multiple-choice questions that ask for the "hash" of the answer (eg. find the complex root of this polynomial... and tell me the sum of its real and imaginary parts) that are supposed to prevent you from doing this kind of thing. They do take the fun out of having multiple choice questions though :)
- gizmo686 7y agoYou also sometimes see questions that look superficially like thay, where the "hash" is actually easier to computer. Eg. Given a polynomial with real coeficients, find the complex roots and tell me the sum of their imaginary parts.
- mannykannot 7y agoThat is pobably why your teacher did not like multiple choice (correctly, IMHO): by seeing your work, he got a better understanding of how well you understood the subject. Understanding something is more than just getting the right answers on a test.
- lolc 7y agoOh absolutely. We knew and he knew why we wanted a multiple-choice test :-)
- leetcrew 7y agobegging for a multiple choice exam in a math-heavy course can be a really bad idea. I had one physics teacher who taught us this lesson. he designed a test where some of the answer choices would be the same number but with a different number of significant figures (0 pts if you choose the wrong one). in a different section of the exam, he made answers that were deliberately off from the calculator result, and you had to know your sig figs to know if it was correct (none of the above was also a choice). after that, we were all very happy to show our work on the remaining tests.
- lolc 7y ago> none of the above was also a choice Yes! The Seed of Doubt! If I ever have to create a multiple-choice test, this will always be one of the possible answers :-) Just last month I had an exam where the examiner had already helped me correct a few basic errors by saying stuff like "well no you switched that around", then asked: "So what is the minimum distance here allowed by regulation?" Me: "Uuuuhh wait, it has to beeeee... 30!". Him: "So it's not 50 you sure?" Me: "wellllll Iii... (fuck you) no it's 30." Him: "Alright."