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I've been fortunate to have been educated in three countries: here, and two western European countries. One thing that I saw overseas was a lack of emphasis on multiple choice testing (especially the way it's practiced here).

Exams in, say, Ireland, are usually structured as follows:

1. The paper has, say, 10 questions (hypothetical number). A student has to answer, say 5 or 6 of them. These numbers are hypothetical, but the questions can't be answered in a minute or way less.


2. In maths, you solve the whole problem and your marks aren't based solely on the correct answer. You also gain or lose points based on what you wrote as you tried to solve the problem.

Check out a higher level maths paper here.

3. Exams in the humanities are based on essays. You are given a question based on something you covered in your courses and you have to answer the question.

Here are two sets of sample questions:


Compare with this question from the Advanced Reading section of the CAHSEE (CA exit exam for high school):


The Irish exams require that students know stuff and apply knowledge. The California exams require that a student pick a fact out of a test booklet and regurgitate it.

For me, this is the biggest problem with multiple choice (MC) tests. These tests not only encourage the writing of simplistic questions --- they pretty much require it. Plus, questions can (and often are) written in a way that facilitates guessing. NCLB's draconian requirements presumably drive this last approach.

We use multiple choice tests because they can be graded using industrial methods (eg, with Scantron devices). I expect that people will argue that this method is more objective, because a Scantron will always give the same credit for the same answer. But from my perspective, MC questions are basically pointless measures of learning, so why even bother? We're penny-wise and pound-foolish in this regard.

One could also argue that exams like the SAT and the MCAT have essay questions, but the grading system is, well, sub-optimal. And this is correct. But the fault doesn't lie with the idea of an essay question; it lies in the fact that they're graded via formula and by low-wage people. Again, the industrial approach. Here's one example.

In Ireland, on the other hand, university faculty members who are knowledgeable in the fields grade exam papers. This is very serious stuff! Obviously, different people will give different marks, but they're experts and they get guidance. They definitely don't give the highest marks to the longest essays.

What's really, really, unfortunate is that most Americans probably have no idea that a national essay-type exam could even exist---let alone know that it's the norm in many places.

Sorry, but a lot of US education and educator ideas --- way beyond the denial of cognitive giftedness --- are just plain broken. Chief among them is the simple refusal to recognize that sometimes the slow, old-fashioned way (essay questions graded by professors) is superior to the modern method (Scantrons).

So, honestly, the problem isn't just that our school system doesn't want to recognize that some people have better cognitive abilities. A lot of other things are also profoundly, horribly, terribly messed up, including how we even define the idea of education.

THIS is why I don't like MC tests.

(Davidson Institute, thanks for the soapbox.)

Val