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Multiple
Choice Tests
Amorey
Gethin
Contents
Multiple
choice - Reading Comprehension tests
Reading
Comprehension - General technique
Reading
Comprehension - Answering the questions
Reading
Comprehension - Practising
Multiple
choice - Filling in blanks to complete sentences
Filling
in blanks - Answering the questions The answers to the four questions above are
as follows:
Multiple
choice - Listening Comprehension
Multiple choice - Reading Comprehension tests
Most
language examinations these days have multiple choice tests. Multiple choice
tests have fundamental defects. But they are a fact of modern exam life and
have to be faced.
Multiple
choice tests are supposed to be objective. In reality, however, it is possible
to train for them, and if you have to do them in your exam it is very important
that you should have practised the right technique for them.
To
test people's ability to understand a language the examiners present a passage
or passages, usually about half a page to a page in length, and give an
instruction more or less as follows:
After each of the following passages there are a number of questions or
unfinished statements about the passage. Each one has four suggested answers or
ways of finishing; choose the one you think is best. (Sometimes more than four alternatives are given.)
Below
is a little piece on the American health system (shorter than what you will
normally get), followed by three of the type of question you could expect to be
set on it.
The standard of medicine in the
But the
American health care system has what look like insoluble problems. There are in
fact two systems side by side. One is the private system run on the basis of
free competition. The other is the public system which had to be created
because such a large part of the population, including many of the elderly,
could not afford to pay for the absurdly expensive private treatment.
The
public system is vast. A huge proportion - more than 10 per cent - of the
1
What is the state of the health system in
A unsatisfactory.
B satisfactory.
C too risky.
D too mechanised.
2
What can patients expect with regard to treatment in the
A Frequent mistakes by doctors.
B Very honest hospitals.
C Personal attention.
D Some of the most skilful nurses in the world.
3
Among those Americans who cannot get proper health care are
A some people who earn too much.
B old people.
C people with very large incomes.
D private patients.
Reading Comprehension - General technique
First,
read through the whole passage fast. When you come to words and expressions you
do not know, whatever you do, do not stop and start worrying about them.
Now,
but not before, comes the problem of choosing the right answer from the four
possibilities, A, B, C, or D. Three of these are wrong, of course. The
examiners call these wrong ones 'distractors': they put them there to confuse
you and lead your mind away in the wrong direction.
You
must not allow these distractors to lead you away.
So,
as you come to each question, look at only the base question (or 'stem')
and not yet at the alternatives A, B, C, D. Before you look at
these, look back immediately at the passage and find out what the passage
says about the question. (A practical method is to cover the alternatives
A, B, C, D each time with a sheet of paper, just leaving the base question
showing, while you study the passage.)
When
you have decided what the passage says, but only then, you can look at the
alternatives A, B, C, D to discover which one fits what you have already decided
is the answer.
It
is always completely safe to do it this way, because if it is a good question
there will only be one right answer and you will see it immediately.
To
study the alternatives A, B, C, D before you look at the passage again is very
dangerous in two ways. You will often be led astray by the distractors and
immediately decide you like the look of one of them and so not be able to read
the passage clearly with an open mind, because you are just trying to prove to
yourself that your choice was right. This may in turn prevent you looking at
the right part of the passage where you can find the real answer.
You
must look first at the picture of reality the writer wants to show us.
Looking at A, B, C, D first will often only give you the ideas of your own
imagination.
One
very common method, unfortunately, is the elimination method of looking at each
alternative in turn and deciding whether it is impossible or not. This is a
dangerous system, for the reasons I have just explained. Moreover, it is not
only a bad plan to think about what the passage does not say; it also
takes more time.
Always
be very careful to be guided only by what the passage actually says. Never base
any answer on anything you personally know or have an opinion about. If there
is a piece about psychology, and you are asked how psychoanalysis developed,
and one alternative suggested is that psychoanalysis was started by Freud, you
must not choose that alternative if it is not stated in the passage.
When
you study the passage in more detail to find out what it says about each
question, you must still not worry about separate words you think you do not
understand. First of all, you will find that in this sort of test the answer
seldom depends on knowledge of just one word. Secondly, you should use your
understanding of the situation to find out the meaning of single words.
Always give yourself a picture of what is happening in the real-life
situation the writer is describing.
Reading Comprehension - Answering the questions
Let
us look at the three questions above.
1 What is the state of the
health system in
This
is an instructive question, because if we ignore A, B, C, D for the moment and
look at the passage we find that in fact there is nothing about the health
system in the first paragraph. The first paragraph is about the standard of
medicine and treatment, not the health system. If you assumed that the answer
to the first question must be found in the first paragraph you would almost
inevitably choose the wrong answer. To find out about the health system we have
to read on through the second paragraph.
There
is an important double moral here. Firstly, we must always concentrate
carefully on exactly what the base question actually asks about. We must act
according to what the question really is, not according to what we would like
it to be - and what we would like it to be can be strongly influenced if we
look at A, B, C, D first!
Then
we must always be ready to look at any part of the passage, perhaps even read
right to the end again. The information we need may sometimes be spread out in
several different places. In this way, too, we will think about what is really
happening according to the passage, not just think abstractly about some
individual words or sentences.
It
is clear from the second paragraph that the state of the American health system
is not good. Now, but not before, we can look at the alternatives A, B, C, D,
and it is immediately clear that the answer must be A.
You
can probably see how dangerous it might have been to look at the alternatives
first: there is mention of good medicine, of risk, and of technology in
the text - but they are not the answer to the base question. If you did not
look back at the passage first you might have been tempted by almost any of
them and possibly not even bothered to look for confirmation in the text.
It
is a good idea to mark with a pencil - just a small stroke in the margin - the
parts of the text that give you the answer, and then rub the marks out when
you've finished each question.
2 What can patients expect with
regard to treatment in the
Again
we look at the text before looking at A, B, C, D. We are told about the
treatment in the first paragraph. The standard is high, and there are many good
specialists, individual attention, and modern equipment. The doctors and
hospitals are careful.
Now
we can look at the alternatives. There is only one that fits what we have just
found out that the passage says, and that is C.
Looking
at the passage before A, B, C, D should make sure you are not tempted by D. If
you had looked at the alternatives first you might have thought to yourself
'Well, it's true, isn't it? The nurses in
3 Among those Americans who cannot get proper health care are
We
look at the passage. We must be particularly careful here. We are looking for
the people who are left outside the system. It isn't the elderly (paragraph 2),
because the public part of the system was set up precisely in order to look
after them, among others.
We
find the people that the system does not help in paragraph 3, where it says
that the income of people who use the public system must not be over a certain
amount. So people who get more than that amount of money won't get government
help. It also says that many unemployed people are left out.
Now
we look at the alternatives. The answer is clearly A. C would of course be
wrong. People with large incomes can get treatment through the private part of
the system.
That
raises a very important final point. When, by looking at the passage, you have
come to a decision about what the answer to the base question is, stick to that
decision whatever you find in the alternatives. Don't allow yourself to change
your mind because of something you find among A, B, C, D. Never forget that the
whole purpose of the distractors is to distract you! The only time you should
even think of changing your mind is if you find something among the
alternatives that immediately makes it clear that you have totally
misunderstood the base question.
Reading Comprehension - Practising
If
you are preparing for an exam with multiple choice questions of this kind you
should obviously practise with a lot of old or practice papers. (The best
practice papers are those published by or in association with the examining
body itself.) You might find it both interesting and useful to try doing the
tests in two different ways. First do some by looking at the alternatives
offered before you look back at the passage; then do some new ones and
use the method I recommend - look at the alternatives only after you have
studied the passage carefully in connection with the base question. See how
your success rates compare!
There
is just one warning: occasionally you will be presented with a bad question
-bad in the sense that the base question will not tell you clearly enough what
you have to look for in the text. If you are unlucky enough to be faced with this
problem, you will obviously have to look at the alternatives first in order to
find out what the examiners are talking about.
Nevertheless,
in cases where the base question is a bad one because it covers too many
possible points, still at least start by looking at the passage first, and mark
all the relevant bits of information, even if you end up by only using one of
them.
If
you have studied the text, noted the information you think is relevant to the
base question, and then find that that information is not mentioned in any of
the alternatives, don't panic. Just go back to the text and study it more
carefully.
Multiple choice - Filling in
blanks to complete sentences
You
sometimes find this sort of test in exam papers that are called Reading Comprehension
tests, although they are really tests of half active, half passive knowledge of
vocabulary.
You
will normally find an instruction like this:
Choose the word or phrase to fit each blank which best completes each
sentence.
Here
are four sample questions:
|
1 My landlady was very …… when I had my bicycle accident. |
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A merciful |
B pitiful |
C sympathetic |
D hearty |
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2 The receptionist …… to ring another hotel to see if they had a
room. |
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A offered |
B suggested |
C recommended |
D invited |
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3 I assure you I have no wish to …… my responsibility. |
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A shirk |
B refuse |
C abandon |
D disobey |
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4 Has there been any …… on the strike from the government? |
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A reaction |
B comment |
C response |
D criticism |
If
you have not prepared well enough for this sort of test, examination technique
will not, I'm afraid, help you very much. In almost all questions you will
either know the right word immediately, or you will not. If you do not, then
you must not waste time thinking about it. That will almost certainly not help.
Just guess, mark your answer sheet, and go on to the next question.
If
this sort of test is combined with other sorts of test in the same exam paper,
give less time proportionately to this test than to other parts of the paper.
The point is that even if it carries a lot of marks, you can do it far faster
than most other tests.
But
always answer every question, however uncertain you are. You will lose a
mark if you leave a blank, and you will lose a mark if your answer is wrong. So
put something -you have a one-in-four (maybe sometimes one-in-five or
six) chance of getting it right if you close your eyes and use a pin. (This
also applies in the type of comprehension test dealt with above.) You are
throwing away marks every time you leave a question blank.
In
a few questions, however, you will find that a preposition, an infinitive, or
some other grammatical detail will tell you what the right word is, so watch
for that sort of pointer.
There
is, in fact, one little trick you can use when you get into difficulty. I
explain this below in connection with question 3.
In
the end, though, we come back to the importance of preparation for this type of
test.
Filling in blanks - Answering the
questions The answers to the four questions above are as follows:
1 C
This is a fairly typical question,
where you know the answer or you don't. The remaining three questions are not
typical in that I have chosen them specially to illustrate particular things
you can bear in mind when you do such tests.
2 A
The infinitive 'to' with 'ring'
makes 'suggested' impossible. The use of 'suggest' here would be a classic
mistake of students of English. 'recommended' and 'invited' would need 'me',
'us', or some other suitable pronoun or noun.
3 A
This is an example of where you
might use the trick I referred to above, if you get into difficulty. If you are
not a native English-speaker you very possibly know all the words except
'shirk'. Let us say you are fairly certain that all the other three words are
wrong. So choose 'shirk', even though you don't know it. You will probably be
right; you obviously must' be right if you 'know' the other words are wrong!
And in any case, you have nothing to lose. So, when in doubt, choose the word
that is new.
4 B
'on' is the key word. 'reaction' and
'response' would need 'to' and 'criticism' would need 'of'.
Multiple choice - Listening Comprehension
Just
as you need to prepare for Reading Comprehension by reading a lot, so you need
to listen a lot to prepare for Listening Comprehension. As with all types of
test, you must practise it too. Try to get hold of practice tests and
cassettes. The questions are organized in more or less the same way as the
Reading Comprehension multiple choice tests.
However,
you will have to use a slightly different technique from the one I suggested
for Reading Comprehension. In the Listening Comprehension test you must look at
the questions first, before you hear the recording, because it is
important to know what sort of things you are going to be asked about, so that
you can listen out for them when you hear the tape. In this test you cannot
examine the text! But still try to concentrate on the base questions, as you
listen to the tape, and use them to lead you to the right alternative. Don't
let your listening be guided by A, B, C, D.
As
in the Reading Comprehension, don't worry about new words you do not know. As always,
think about the context and the real-life situation that is being
described.
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