Exams can be intimidating for students. As a teacher, however, your only goal is to ensure that your students truly understand the content that you’re teaching them. That being said, it’s essential that you, as the educator, fully understand the benefits of the different types of tests that can be created.
With as many options of testing available, it’s good to know the benefits of each so that you’re able to prioritize both your well-being and that of your students. In today’s blog, the team at Precision Data Products is going to talk about multiple choice testing and why it is a fantastic option when creating an exam.
Flexibility With Questions
As you go about creating your test questions, you’ll quickly realize that it can be challenging to get your point across in a way that your students will understand. The benefit of multiple choice tests is that you’re able to have some flexibility when creating your question because you’re able to include a couple of different answers. This setup makes it so that you can focus on one particular part of the question to really see how familiar your students are with it.
A great example of this flexibility comes with math exams. Math requires you to solve problems in a specific order to get the correct answer. If the problem is solved out of order, the answer is going to be wrong. By creating a math problem on your test that has one correct answer, but a couple of answers that students could get to if the problem was not solved correctly, you challenge their knowledge on the process.
This is something extremely valuable in regards to creating exams. It’s something that you could certainly see by looking at the work of an open answer exam, but this particular method makes it all the easier to see where the student went wrong. This information will not only provide you with a better idea of how students are viewing the process, but which areas are weak points that you can touch on after the exam.
Working Backwards
One of the most controversial things about multiple choice exams is the fact that students have the ability to work backward on questions to get the correct answer. Though many people believe this to be a downfall of this particular type of test, the reality is that there is still quite a bit of learning that is happening here. By being able to recognize which answer is not correct, students can better work their way to determining which answer is correct.
Multiple choice exams are a fantastic way to test your student’s knowledge with topics that you’ve only begun studying. With the multiple answers that are available on these types of exams, students are able to work with the knowledge that they are sure of and find the correct answer. It’s not the ideal method when you’re hoping for students to have a solid understanding of a topic or means of solving a problem, but it is absolutely a great way to start testing their knowledge.
Easy to Score
There’s no doubt about it, multiple choice tests are significantly easier to grade. Whether your class sizes are on the larger end or you have multiple classes that are going to be taking the exam, this is a benefit that you are definitely going to enjoy. Not only do multiple choice questions narrow down the potential answers, but utilizing bubble answer sheets, like the PDP 100 form, can make grading all the easier.
While short-answer or essays can definitely provide you with a better scope of your student’s understanding, they also require a significant amount of time to grade. If that’s what you’re hoping to get out of a test, then it’s definitely worth creating those particular types of tests. If you’re simply looking to test knowledge or a surface level understanding, multiple choice tests are a fantastic way to do so.
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There are many reasons that multiple-choice exams are so popular, and the three points that we’ve listed above are only a fraction of them. If you haven’t already, create a multiple choice test for your students and see just how beneficial it can be for their learning experience.
If you choose to create a multiple choice exam, you are going to need the right materials. Precision Data Products carries a selection of testing forms that make it easy for your students to fill out and for you to grade. Browse our store and check out the different bubble answer forms that we have available for your tests. Aside from that, browse the resources available so that you can ensure you’re making the most out of the answer form that you choose to use. At the end of the day, our team strives to provide you with the supplies you need to best serve your students. Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.
