'Go with your gut!': Student fails test after changing their correct answers, shares teacher's message
Test-taking is, itself, a skill. And those of us who struggle with the technique of taking the actual test likely didn't have a great time in school, no matter what our actual aptitude for the subjects was. It gets worse than that, though, when governments impose standardized tests to gauge the school's performance, entire curriculums become geared toward not learning the subjects but passing the test itself.
Like what you see? Follow our WhatsApp channel for more.
-
Just ask anyone who grew up in Washington State in the mid-00s and spent entire years of schooling studying purely to pass the aptly named Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL.) While the WASL was derided by teachers and students alike, I'm sure this is not a unique experience and that other states had their own standardized equivalents.
Still, there needs to be some way of measuring skills—right? The problem is taking a test isn't really about how much you know. There becomes a point where it's merely about pitting students against each other. Try going to a competitive university where you can still fail at 80% because the course is graded on a curve due to a certain amount of people needing to fail at each level to reduce the number of eligible students and maintain the department's exclusivity. Add to this the fact that a lot of students in these introductory weeding-out courses are partaking in institutionalized-assisted cheating, and it becomes a bit more sinister.
Anyways, back to the post at hand… This student really failed in the test-taking part of the test, second-guessing enough of their correct answers to the test. If you really have no idea what the answer to a multiple-choice question is, you should always go with your gut instinct or your first answer; as soon as you change your answer, you're dealing with a similar situation to the Monty Hall problem, in which your chances of a correct answer diminish greatly as soon as you change it.
-
Advertisement
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
Advertisement
-
4
-
5
-
6
-
Advertisement
-
7
-
8
-
9
-
Advertisement
-
10
-
11
-
12
-
Advertisement
-
13
-
14
-
15
-
Advertisement
-
16
-
17
-
18
-
Advertisement
-
19
-
20
-
21
Stay up to date by following us on Facebook!
Tags
Next on FAIL Blog
Comments
Hot Today