David Merritt is a junior majoring in communication. He can be contacted at [email protected].Everyone likes multiple-choice tests. Don’t lie. You know it’s true. We love them because they’re so straightforward and easy. Or maybe we love them because if worse comes to worse, you can always guess. You’ve probably got a 20 percent or 25 percent chance of getting a question right even if you have no idea what it’s talking about.
What’s so wrong with this mode of testing? I think it has to do with how mechanical it is. If you really wanted to, you could build a robot to take a multiple-choice test for you. And I’m not even talking about a fancy robot with lasers or anything. A toaster with a solar panel could probably pass your history test on Monday. He could at least look over your shoulder and give you some encouraging moral support.
“Good job user 01.”
“Exemplary answer!”
“Please have a toasted bagel, user 01.”
There’s a very obvious problem with testing students as if they’re robots, which is this: students are (surprise) not robots at all, but human beings who have the ability to think and thus should develop it. If a teacher wants to ensure that students truly understand the material and are in fact thinking, then maybe his testing methods should reflect this desire.
Something like having to write a paragraph or some sort of essay might help because it forces the student to organize thoughts and put them on paper rather than merely regurgitate what the instructor has taught. When you have to solve a problem in the real world, no one magically presents you with possible answers; you have to determine your own solution.
Multiple-choice testing and its brainless derivatives lose sight of the main purpose of education. I’m not paying tuition and growing eyebrow deep in debt to memorize trivial facts that my professors think are important. Rather, I’m in college to force myself to evaluate the way I view the world and myself, or in other words, think.
It’s a pity that most schools have adopted a “vocational” mindset toward learning. They prepare students very well for specific tasks they perform in the workforce but not very well for life.