Naheed Hossian

MULTIPLE CHOICE
State the flaw in each item below.

1. A 90 angle is called a

a) Acute angle
b) Obtuse angle
c) Right angle

Flaw: Grammatical cluing

2. Who was President after Ronald Reagan?

a) George Bush
b) Bill Clinton
c) Mother Teresa
d) Richard Nixon

Flaw 1): Implausible Distractors + Lack of Clarity (After Ronald Reagan can
be anyone, more specific would be immediately after.

3. Sue drives her Subaru 5.00 miles to the convenience store to buy one chicken for
$4.52, a wheel of camembert for $9.99 per wheel, two pounds of Genoa salami for
$4.50 per pound, and a can of minestrone soup for $1.39. A quart of ice cream for
$5.99 is beyond her budget. There is no tax on food items. How much does she
spend?

a) $20.40
b) $24.90
c) $29.90
d) $30.89

Flaw: Excessive Verbage

4. If Sue gives the clerk $40, how much change does she receive?

a) $9.11
b) $13.61
c) $15.10
d) $19.60

Flaw: Linking of Item/Question

TRUE-FALSE ITEMS:
State what is WRONG with the item construction or phrasing for each
True-False item below:
1. Plants and Animals are the only categories that biologists
need to classify every living thing. T F

Flaw: Absolute included

2. The major problem in the world today is that too many

people want more than their fair share of the Earths resources.
T F

Flaw: Opinion is not attributed

3. Achilles is a lion is a metaphor, and the sun burned like a furnace

is a simile. T F

Flaw: Double Barreled T/F Question

4. An animal that has feathers is not an amphibian. T F

Flaw: Negative Include

MATCHING ITEM SETS:

_____1. He proposed the idea of commerce

natural rights to life, liberty (a) John Locke
and happiness.
_____2. The first female U.S. Supreme (b) Legislative branch
Court Justice
_____3. This document represents the (c) Sandra Day OConnor
Supreme Law of the Land.
_____4. The branch of government that (d) The Constitution
can raise taxes and regulate
Name and describe TWO major flaws with the matching item set above:
Perfect Matching and Specific Determiners

Flaw 1 Perfect Matching: There is an equal number of short terms and

responses
Flaw 2 The use of specific determiners: Pronoun determiners like he and
the first female indicate the matches for John Locke and Sandra Day O
connor. In addition specific determiners like document and the branch
provide logical clues for student where they dont need an understanding
of topic to correctly guess the answer.

CRITIQUE THE FOLLOWING INTERPRETIVE EXERCISE, FROM NYS REGENTS EXAMS:

COMPREHENSIVE ENGLISH, LISTENING COMPREHENSION:

Overview: For this part of the test, you will listen to an account about Madame
Marie Curie, answer some multiple choice questions, and write a response based on
the situation described below. You will hear the account twice. You may take notes
on the next page anytime you wish during the readings.

(READING)

Use your notes to answer the following questions about the passage read to you.

1. According to the speaker, Marie Curie advanced the cause of

(1) religious freedom (3) womens rights
(2) universal literacy (4) voting rights

2. According to the speaker, scientific discoveries continue today based

on Marie Curies understanding of

(1) radioactivity (3) relativity

(2) magnetism (4) propulsion

A. What is the item set intended to measure?

a. The items intends to measure what Marie Curie did
and why she continues to be a relevant figure in science.
B. What would be better way of assessing students on the construct that
you could do in the classroom?
a. The passage would probably clearly point out what
Marie Curie advanced the cause of, so I don't think asking that
question would apropriately assess their ability to
acknowledge Marie Curie's accomplishments. I think it would
be a good idea to create a set of true/false questions which
state what she did or may not have done.
b. Similar to the first question, theres a certain
vagueness to the question which asks what Marie Curies
discoveries have contributed to and still are relevant today. I
think the lack of specificity would encourage students to treat
exams like rote assessments where their job is simply to figure
what the main idea is and how to get the gist of a paragraph.
Theres a certain detachment created due to this where
students dont really want to learn anything significant, but
just want to find the answers. If this was an English class, then
perhaps its fine to use these questions in a skills building
sessions, where students are asked to look for the main idea of
a passage but use the classroom time to give space for student
response, but if this was a science or history class, then I
wouldnt leave the questions this vague but would ask for
specific details.