On Inside Higher Ed today “MathProf,” an anonymous poster, raised an original objection to multiple-choice tests: they are packed with lies. He said one student “pointed out to me that multiple-choice tests are inherently deceptive, featuring wrong answers deliberately designed to appear plausible. Is this really the skill we want to teach and reward: not knowledge, not reasoning, but the ability to choose the most acceptable answer in a forest of deliberately plausible lies?” Point taken. We here at Minding the Campus are opposed to lies, forests of plausible lies in particular, but the way out seems clear: let’s just make sure that all possible choices on these tests are correct. Every student will therefore get the same perfect score, a decisive boost for equality as well as truth in testing.
