Students in a history class should be learning how to assess ideas, relate events and motivations, and put their own thoughts on paper in a coherent way. They should NOT be answering questions like "Which of the following was NOT an Axis power in 1944?" These questions create factoids out of information.
This sort of thing is worse when the answers are:
a) Japan
b) Canada
c) Italy
d) Germany
And when nobody notices that both B and C are correct (Italy capitulated in 1943), it effectively makes the students dumber for having taken the class.
Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia was invaded in the year of... '38? '39? Who cares? As long as you know it was after the Anschluss and the Sudentenland, but before Poland, you've got the facts you need to understand how things developed.
And isn't that the point of dates, to put things in their proper sequence?
