@boomerang,
You don't know if you've got a decent question unless you've tested it.
An adult reads things very differently than an eight year old.
What was the object that was hidden? (not okay for 3rd grade)
What did Lola hide? (Okay for 3rd grade)
I used to write vocabulary stories for Grade 2-6. The company I worked would give me a list of words to put in a story, I'd write it and then try to write cogent questions about both the words and the story.
There were times when we thought (I had a really good editor down in Texas) that we had
nailed a particular lesson and only to get several comments back about either the stories, the questions or both. Once there was an objection to a kid walking by himself on a fishing dock because that was dangerous. (fifth graders) They wanted it re-written so there would be a group, I said:
"Okay, but to it's more likely that someone in a group of fifth graders is going to get pushed into the water than if the kid was by himself. "
~
As for teachers being able to write questions well, I drove my professors at University of Tulsa Communication Department crazy because many of them couldn't write a multiple choice question where only
one of the choices was correct. It's hard to do. You have make all the choices plausible, but only one can be accepted as
the answer.
(Obviously this is not the case with D: all of the above///Both A and C//Both B and D/// blah blah yadda yadda. )
I can't think of the guy's name now, but every time he handed back a test, we would review it as a class and go through all of the questions. Sometimes as many as seven or eight out of fifty had to be revised.
It was fun.
I fought for every one of my answers.
Joe(I was a putz)Nation
