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July 7th 03, 01:22 AM

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

"Phil Kane" wrote in message
st.net...
On 05 Jul 2003 02:23:30 GMT, N2EY wrote:

The big problem with essay and fill-in-the-blank questions is that the
answers
are not 100% objective. There's always a measure of judgement involved.

For example, take a simple question like "what is the length of a
half-wave
dipole cut for 7.1 MHz?" With multiple choice, the QPC says that one
answer
(say, 66 feet) is the correct one and all others are incorrect.

Want to make that one more fun? Do it like the 200 multi-guess
questions on the Multistate Bar Exam: give four choices - two are
obviously incorrect and two are "almost correct". Ask which of the
four is the -best- answer.

Yup. Imagine the following answer sets to the question:

What is the length of a half-wave dipole cut for 7.1 MHz?

Answer set #1:

A) 25 feet
B) 40 feet
C) 66 feet
D) 90 feet

Answer set #2:

A) 65 feet
B) 67 feet
C) 66 feet
D) 68 feet

But with essays and fill-in-the-blank, what tolerance do we put on the
correct answer? Is 67 feet acceptable? 68 feet? 66 feet 3 inches? The
person being tested could write a long dissertation on tapering elements,
the effect of ground, wire/tubing sizes, etc., and come up with a whole
range of arguably-correct answers.

And run into an examiner who doesn't understand all the nuances of
such an answer.....

Bingo. Heck, about a year and a half ago FCC recalled a few new questions
because the answers were wrong - this after they'd been reviewed by both the
QPC and FCC. Embarrassing.

From what I have researched, FCC went to multiple-choice questions for all
ham exams no later than 1961.

IIRC the Novice and Tech/General that I took in 1952 were all
multi-choice.

I was there then too, I'll vouch for that.

The Advanced and Extra allegedly had some diagram content in that era. Of
course after Feb 1953 all it took was a General for full privs.

The next written exam that I took was the Advanced in
1968 and by that time multi-choice was in place for a long time in
all FCC license exams with the exception of two pages of diagrams in
the Commercial Radiotelegraph Element 6 which had to be graded by an
engineer, not a regular examiner.

I read somewhere that the reasons the FCC dropped the essay-type exams
of the '30's and earlier were (a) The answers were too subject to
interpretation by the examiner and/or the candidate knew the correct
answers but bungled the composition of his answers (b) Multiple choice
answer sheets can be much more quickly graded, almost automatically
with an overlay type checking mask.

Also (c) Anyone who has half a brain can proctor and mark the test - no special
radio knowledge needed.

Speaking of overlay type checking masks, I recall when I first saw the answer
sheets and used the prescribed #2 pencils. I thought FCC had some sort of
computer marking system, and wondered whether it used optical methods (shining
a light through the paper, to be read by photocells) or electrical contacts
sensing the graphite from the pencil on the answer sheet. Imagine my
disappointment when the secretary at the FCC office merely put a punched paper
mask over the answer sheet.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv

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