Current Events > A student of mine scored a 5.8%, 1 out of 17 on a test today.

(+) Yeah! (+)

All questions were Multiple Choice.
Like mathematically I don't even know how that is possible.

TC thinking about why:

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Assuming 4 options per question, that's a 25% chance of guessing correctly. Across 17 questions, that means even random guessing should net 4 correct answers.

Maybe the test is written so that somebody who's not prepared is led to answers that may seem right on intuition but are wrong.

Sounds like that student needs a better teacher.

Doe posted...

Maybe the test is written so that somebody who's not prepared is led to answers that may seem right on intuition but are wrong.

It was a vendor created test, so I did not create or alter the questions.
They were all fairly straightforward.

Vicious_Dios posted...

Sounds like that student needs a better teacher.

And here it is. There's always one.

Only real answer is that kid wasn't guessing, but in fact knew every correct answer and purposely chose a wrong one, then thought it would be funnier to get everything but one wrong and changed an answer before handing it in.

Kid's trolling you.

Back in high school, a teacher of mine he put out a 50 question true or false test the year before and he had one student who failed it with 0%.

One time a student got a -20% on a take home quiz. Because there was a 10% deduction for every day it was late. The student turned it in 2 days late, and got every question wrong. So -20.

Teacher took 20 points off another quiz and gave 'em a zero for the late one

TULPAMANCER posted...

Teacher took 20 points off another quiz and gave 'em a zero for the late one

That teacher was a loser. The kid shouldn't be penalized more for failing than not turning it in. I'd go so far as to say that was improper conduct on the teacher's part.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I choose C

C was thats not true

In college I figured out a pattern my prof would do on scantron tests. He never, ever, had more than 2 of the same answer in a row. These were 100 question long scantrons at times. So as a little error checking device while writing, if you got 3 of the same in a row, you know at least one of them was wrong.

Presumably didnt know the answers, and had bad luck guessing.

Was anyone else fed that shit about "Most of the time the answer is either B or C."

If I were a teacher and gave multiple choice exams, just once I'd make all the answers the same letter except one.

Also, if there was a pattern to be found, I'd often find it over the course of a few tests. Often my university "professors" were worse about this than my high school teachers.

I once selected option C when there were only A and B... I wanna say it was a brain fart

Flockaveli posted...

Was anyone else fed that shit about "Most of the time the answer is either B or C."

There was some big mathematical analysis of scantrons or something in the 80s or early 90s and C was more common than the other options. Not to say C is the answer most of the time, but rather that while you would think the answers would be within a standard deviation or two of 25% each for A, B, C, and D it was actually like 33% of the time the answer was C.

But considering the human factor behind those tests and all the D, all of the above answers? It makes sense that certain answers will be more common than others.

So yeah. It isn't usually C, it's just that if you're going at random your chances are better with C. Though really, if you combined the "eliminate the obvious wrong answer and of the 3 remaining pick what sounds most accurate" technique with picking C you'd probably plummet your score.

RlP posted...

I once selected option C when there were only A and B... I wanna say it was a brain fart

The first time I took the SAT I messed up a section due to messing up and skipping a question so all my answers were one off. I was gonna take it again anyways to do better but my score went way up the second time.

gunplagirl posted...

The first time I took the SAT I messed up a section due to messing up and skipping a question so all my answers were one off.

This was always one of my biggest fears in school. Dont think it ever happened, but the idea of it was terrifying.

maybe the teacher they have is bad ^_^

billcom6 posted...

All questions were Multiple Choice.
Like mathematically I don't even know how that is possible.

You're a teacher, yet you can't calculate the odds of someone getting 1/17 in a multiple choice test?

No wonder kids are so dumb these days. The people who are paid to help them are clearly incompetent.