On Feb 8, 8:38 am, Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:

The current multiple-choice system is the most
practicable for testing at many sites in the field. My VEC sends to me
test question booklets with the required number (35 or 50) and
distribution of questions taken from the pool. They supply us with
templates to put over the answer sheets to grade the exams. Everything
that we do regarding grading is specified to the nth degree. This is
to protect us as well as to insure the integrety of the testing
process. If we were to switch to essay questions, I, and I suspect
most of my fellow VE's, would not feel competent to grade them.

I'd feel competent to grade them. But that's not the issue.

Grading
of essay questions is necessarily subjective, not objective.

*That's* the issue.

With multiple choice, there's one right answer for each question and
all the rest are wrong. No knowledge of the subject is needed to grade
such a test.

I do like the idea of negative points for wrong answers. But, that's
not the program as we operate it.

It would take a change of FCC rules, too.

If we did deduct for wrong answers,
we'd probably have to reduce the passing percentage of 74% (26 out of
35) to something lower, say 65%.

Why?

All that negative points do is to remove any possible gain
fromguessing.

The way the multiple-choice questions (5 choices for each) on the SATs
were graded (back in the ancient times when I took them) wasthis:

5 points for each right answer -1 point for each wrong answer 0 points
for each answer left blank.

And any changes in this would have to
be approved by the FCC in Part 97.503.

Which would be the hardest part.

But they could do more in the concepts of things like Fourier analysis
and field theory, without having to work with big complicated
equations.

I'd settle for more in the concepts of Basic Radio.

I have a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, so in
college I studied all kinds of complicated equations dealing with
Fourier analysis and field theory (and had to derive some of them on
closed-book tests). But after I graduated, I rarely had to apply those
equations directly, just know the concepts and apply them.

Me too. Plus real-life tends to be open-book; you check to be sure.

The basic
concepts can be understood, at a qualitative level, by simple diagrams
and hand-waving.

One of the things that ARRL publications do really well is to explain
the concepts without tons of math and physics. Particularly the older
Handbooks and the treasured "Understanding Amateur Radio" book.
Simplified? Yes. Useful? Extremely!

73 de Jim, N2EY