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Bad test questions needed
Do any of you have examples of bad (inaccurate, poorly worded, confusing,
biased, ambiguous) test questions for me? I need some for a fundraising
booth for FairTest I'm going to set up at an upcoming gathering of our
homeschooling group. (As mentioned previously on this list, I've
successfully proposed that our group match its members' donations to
FairTest).
If I can find it in the basement, I'm going to use a primitive "teaching
machine" my mother made back in the 1960's in a teacher training course -
it's a wooden board with a light or buzzer on it. I want to use the
questions in the "machine" to get people's attention.
The funnier or more outrageous the questions, the better.
Here's an example I might use if I had the exact wording of it, and the
source (a friend recently told me about it). This was a multiple choice
question on a test for the elementary grades. The question read, "Squirrels
eat ___." The answers included "hamburgers" and "acorns."
My friend's friend, who teaches in an inner-city neighborhood, said some of
her students thought "hamburgers" was the right answer.
There's a McDonald's right around the corner from the school. Guess what the
squirrels eat out of the dumpster.
If I used this question, someone who picked the "acorns" answer might get a
piece of paper saying, "Congratulations! You think just like a suburbanite
who's read a lot of nice picture books! Score one point." Someone who picked
the "hamburgers" answer might read, "Sorry! You must live in the city. We
understand that you may see squirrels eating hamburgers out of the dumpster
behind McDonald's all the time. Doesn't count."
Back when I came up with the idea for this booth, I mistakenly thought I
remembered a book published by FairTest that included a lot of faulty test
questions. But now I think the book I was thinking of was None of the Above,
by David Owen, and I don't have a copy. (And I'm not finding much on the
FairTest website.)
So your Worst Test Questions of All Time would be appreciated. Thanks.
Elsa Haas
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