Are You Tough Enough?

I’m going to try really really hard not to go on a rant about the high-stakes testing that schools are enduring these days. But that’s the context that this question comes from.

Designing tests and writing test questions is a complicated process. Multiple-choice questions are much faster (and therefore much much much cheaper) to grade and consequently make up most or all of the standardized tests we face. One of the challenges is to write a multiple-choice question that requires anything more than regurgitating facts.

In a recent National Education Association publication they state,

Not everyone agrees that multiple-choice is the biggest problem. H. D. Hoover, principal author of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills for 40 years (and recently retired), thinks they can be every bit as thought-provoking as open-ended questions.

Case in point:

The full moon rises at midnight…
a. always b. usually c. rarely d. never

That question stumps a lot of adults — and it’s too tough to put on a state test. Figuring it out depends on really understanding why the moon has phases, and then applying that understanding — not bad for a 10-word item.

Wow. Too tough for a state test? Are we that out of touch with the rhythms of our world? Are we that science ignorant? And, at the risk of embarrassing anyone [although everyone that reads here is well above average intelligence], could you answer this correctly? And, perhaps more importantly, is this something you know or something you have to figure out? (No fair doing a web search. I’ll tell you the answer in my next post.)