While taking the cbest today, i usually think of random subjects to write about. It occured to me that if an almost perfect answer pattern were apparent on the scantron, basically its an answer sheet, than deviating from patterns would probably make some students a little paranoid about what their answrs should be.

Though throughout school there has always been the joke that you should always "answer C" as the most probable answer on a multiple choice test. Well what i devise is teachers should do in order to have superior test taking skills is to apparently make almost all the answer "follow a pattern"

What i mean by this is to have about 75% of the answers follow 2 shape patterns such as a "wave" pattern, column pattern, or even spelling pattern when they start to get answers right. Students know that patterns seem like an idiotic way to store answers on a scantron, but if they see it they might get a little bit worried.This way, students will be more psychologically prepared for an exam.

It will most certainly divide the ones who are truely smart and the ones who are dumb.
-- compatta, Jun 18 2006

Where I grew up in England, we had these things called 'Richmond Tests' where you had to read the test sheet, and then mark your answer in one of 5 oval option boxes marked A-E in an HB pencil provided especially for the purpose.

If memory serves me correctly we did this once every two or three years through school (curiously, no-one ever found out what scores they got)

I remember looking over a completed test sheet a few times and looking for patterns - sometimes they would be there, only with occasional deviations. I think I might have been a bit nervous if my results had come out in some geometrical pattern - but I'd only be nervous after the event.

I'm not sure how making students believe that there should be a pattern in their test results is going to help them in any way. In fact, if anything I would have thought perpetuating any sort of mumbo-jumbo about these sorts of things is going to raise stress levels, and lower performance rather than anything else.

Students should approach exams with the contempt they deserve. They mean little, and counter productively serve to skew the teaching of subjects away from anything useful into the rote techniques required to pass exams.
-- zen_tom, Jun 18 2006


When in doubt the longest answer is the one. If there would have been any pattern I would not have studied at all.-
-- zeno, Jun 18 2006



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