1. Guidelines to Test Preparation Guidelines to Test Preparation

2. Guidelines for Writing Essay Questions  Be sure your question really tests the learning outcome of interest  Each item should have  a clear statement of the problem  any restrictions on the answer  Construct a model answer  content of an ideal answer  important organizational features you expect

3. Criterion for well-written questions  Use clear concise language  Be precise about restrictions

4. Clear: Explain why certain chemicals should always be mixed in a certain order. Ambiguous: Exploding chemicals can be dangerous, which should not happen. How do you avoid this? Impossible: Sometimes reactions occur that are potentially volatile when the proper order of mixing certain chemicals is not maintained. Can you explain this?

5. Precise Discuss the various properties of water.

6. Consider these alternatives Describe what happens to water when it is exposed to extreme temperatures List the chemical properties of water List the nutritional properties of drinking water Why does the taste of water vary so greatly from one location to another? List and briefly describe five ways that water helps to sustain life.

7. Advantages to Essay Questions  Measures higher mental processes, such as the ability to think, to understand large concepts, to organize information, and to express ideas clearly and concisely.  Stimulates creativity and freedom of expression

8. Disadvantages  Require a great deal of time to read and score  Unreliable sampling of student achievement  Tends to be vulnerable to unreliable scoring  Handicaps students who write slowly

9. Guidelines of Writing Multiple Choice Questions 1. Incomplete statements should be meaningful. Poor Example The United States of America a. has more than 200,000 people. b. grows large amounts of rubber. c. has few good harbors. d. produces most of the world’s automobiles.

10. Improved The population of the United States is characterized by a. an increasing birth rate. b. varied nationality background. c. its even distribution over the area of the United States. d. an increasing proportion of young people.

11. 2. Use English that is simple and clear, easy enough for even the poorest readers to understand. Faulty Which of the following metals is characterized by extensive utilization in the aircraft industry? a. Chromium b. Uranium c. Aluminum d. Beryllium

12. Improved Which of the following is most often used in making airplanes? a. chromium b. uranium c. aluminum d. beryllium

13. Other Guidelines 3. Length of alternatives should be consistent 4. Distracters should be plausible 5. Alternatives should be arranged uniformly 6. Grammatically consistent 7. 4 -5 alternatives

14. 8. Avoid using “all of these” or “none of these” 9. Have only one correct answer 10. Stem should mean the same to everyone for example

15. Ambiguous Which of the following household appliances would use the most electrical power? a. the vacuum cleaner b. the electric fan c. the electric iron d. a fluorescent tube Does the test-maker refer to frequency of use, or power used by each appliance over the same period of time?

16. Better In one hour of operation, which one of the following household appliances would use the most electric power? a. a vacuum cleaner b. an electric fan c. an electric iron d. a fluorescent light bulb

17. Guidelines 12. Understanding of definitions is better tested by furnishing the name or word and requiring choices among alternative definitions than by presenting the definition and requiring choices among alternative names or words. -- for example

18. Faulty A four-sided figure whose opposite sides are parallel is called a. a trapezoid b. a parallelogram c. an octagon d. a triangle

19. Advantages to Multiple Choice  Answered quickly  Scored quickly  Test a lot of material in a short time  Questions easy to write once you learn the format  Can be used for motivation, review and evaluation

20. Disadvantages  Measure at recognition level  Scoring is mechanical  Little way to spot problems of students  Really good questions are hard to develop and require a lot of time to prepare

21. Matching Items  words and definitions  historical events and dates  novels and their authors  tools and their uses  problems and solutions  elements and symbols  causes and effects

22. Guidelines  obvious/natural relationship  basis of matching should be made clear to students  one list should be 50% longer  the shorter list should not contain more than 7-8 items

23. Advantages  Can judge simple relationships between similar ideas, facts, etc.  Relatively easy to score  Range of material tested can be broad  Guessing reduced

24. Disadvantages  Cannot measure understanding of concepts  Measures memorized content  Difficult to avoid giving clues  Too many items on list make it confusing.

25. True-False  Susceptible to guessing  50% chance of getting them correct  Each item must be clearly true or clearly false.  Do not try to trick the students.

26. 1.Liquids always flow in the direction of gravitational pull. 2.Cities are built on major traffic routes. 3.Extroverts are outgoing and always popular. All faulty.

27. 1.Squares have three sides and two right angles. 2.Complete sentences include both a subject and predicate. 3.Our moon reflects the light of the sun. Clearly stated.

28. Advantages  A large number of items can be answered in a short period of time.  Can be checked rapidly.  Good of initiating discussion.  Makes a good pretest.

29. Disadvantages  Difficult to write without giving the answer away.  Much of the material that lends itself to this type of question is relatively unimportant.  No way to judge what student may know – why he/she chose the way they did.  Not fair way of determining grades.