Best Political Cartoons

[Shane for Wax]

I don't get it.

I think it's commentary on how schools are shortchanging students by teaching them how to take standardized tests instead of how to think.

Bingo bango bongo.

[Askold]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

[PosthumanHeresy]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

They're 99% of the tests here.

[Shane for Wax]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

When I was in school, they were about 60% of the tests I had to do.

[Igor]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

They're 99% of the tests here.

...wow. We had.. the odd test that was like that. The EQAO tests in grades 3, 6, and 9 and the literacy test in grade 10 are the only ones I can remember that were actually like that. Other than that we had multiple choice questions, sure, but those were just sections on tests set by the teacher.

[Kit Walker]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

Well, it can vary from school to school or even teacher to teacher. Fact is that if you have five or six classes of 30-ish kids apiece, it can be hard to give proper short answer or essay only tests. That said, for most of my schooling tests would be a mixture - some multiple choice, some fill-in-the-blank, some short answer, and maybe one or two essay. That's more a function of class sizes, so far as I can tell.

The problem is that we have hugely important standardized, predominantly multiple choice tests that influence everything from the school's funding to students' scholarship opportunities. That's the biggest problem with bubble-in tests.

[wrightway]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

The laziness of the teacher is a big contributing factor. It's much easier to grade the MCT than written answers.

[Shano]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

The laziness of the teacher is a big contributing factor. It's much easier to grade the MCT than written answers.

You mean how close to complete exhaustion the teacher is, right? Because, the closer we are the more we try to ease the load on us. I am sure that was what you were trying to say.

[wrightway]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

The laziness of the teacher is a big contributing factor. It's much easier to grade the MCT than written answers.

You mean how close to complete exhaustion the teacher is, right? Because, the closer we are the more we try to ease the load on us. I am sure that was what you were trying to say.

Yes. Totally. Teachers in the American school system are overworked and underpaid. Very few, if any, can be called lazy.

[Osama bin Bambi]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

It varies from teacher to teacher. Lazier teachers tend to do multiple-choice tests, while teachers who actually give more of a shit prefer short-answer tests. It also varies from subject to subject - math and science are more likely to be multiple choice tests, while history and language arts are more likely to be short-answer tests or even in-class essays.

The most obvious problem with multiple-choice tests, of course, is that it has more to do with memorization and eliminating impossible choices than it does to do with understanding the information being tested. On top of that, they are notoriously easy to cheat on. (The only foolproof method I've ever seen to prevent this is to create a different version of the multiple-choice test for each student in the class, but this is extremely time-consuming and a teacher with enough time to do this will probably assign a short-answer test anyway.) At least with short-answer tests you can tell when several students have obviously used the same cheat sheet.

[PosthumanHeresy]

I agree, there are no lazy teachers. They get paid like utter shit, and have ginormous workloads.

[dpareja]

I feel like these are appropriate (though some have probably already been posted in this thread):

[Shane for Wax]

I agree, there are no lazy teachers. They get paid like utter shit, and have ginormous workloads.

I disagree. That isn't universal in the US in the least. Even from public school to public school in the same district you will find variance.

Not to mention once we go from high school to college. Because guess what? College has scantron tests, too! Many of my teachers used them. I wouldn't pin all of it down on laziness but it certainly cuts down time and allows you to put more effort into other things.

So no, I wouldn't use the phrase there are no lazy teachers. But that's getting into semantics and such, I'm sure.

With that said, I usually did better on the essay and short answer tests/quizzes than I did multiple choice because my brain shuts down when it comes to picking something. Even if I know the answer I get very doubtful it's the right one when there's another answer right there that might be as likely.

[Meshakhad]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

I think most of my tests outside of math were partially multiple choice. A big test would usually have a multiple choice section, a short answer section, and one essay. There was one teacher who liked to give the students 100-question multiple choice quizzes with no warning. One week he did it four days in a row. The third test was entitled "You Probably Should Have Seen This Coming".

[anti-nonsense]

Just out of curiousity, how common are those multiple choise tests in USA? Because in Finland nearly all of our tests were the type where there are no options to pick from and you have to write down your answer.

I think most of my tests outside of math were partially multiple choice. A big test would usually have a multiple choice section, a short answer section, and one essay. There was one teacher who liked to give the students 100-question multiple choice quizzes with no warning. One week he did it four days in a row. The third test was entitled "You Probably Should Have Seen This Coming".

yeah same here, although I think most of my provincial exams (in grade 12) were entirely multiple choice, except for English. Easier to mark quickly I guess, which is a consideration when thousands of tests need to be marked in time to send the final grades to universities/colleges.

I had a few teachers that discouraged guessing on multiple choice tests by taking off extra points for wrong answers, to get students to just leave it blank, although if you had some vague idea of the material and could eliminate two choices out of four, you could often still profit by guessing, since they usually took of less then a whole point extra, so if you had a 50 percent chance of getting it right you were still better off guessing.