Tuesday, February 26, 2008

An utterly awful math test | FOB

An utterly awful math test | FOB: "The test is a putrid example of how bad these standardized tests are. As near as I can tell, it's a combination of testers being proud of how well they can trick third graders, and utter ignorance of basic mathematical principles. Without further ado, I present the most obnoxious questions…"

Measuring for the wrong kind of thing. It makes you wonder...
Making a good test is pretty hard, there are all kinds of specialists out there trying to do it right, but these are questions that are so amazingly bad I am not sure how they could have gotten vetted.

For example, amateur radio has a volunteer examiner coordinator committee that creates questions for the license tests, a couple hundred questions are in the pool with 35-50 being used on the test depending on the level being tested for. Only a few have been withdrawn. It is just not that hard to find ways to weed out bad questions

I had one teacher that would give everyone credit for a question if not enough people got it right. There are many others.

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