multiple guess
Imagine for a moment that you read on a seventh-grade level.
Justify the author's decision to make the revision by selecting the statement below that accurately evaluates the effect of the connotation of the word vow on the author's purpose.
This is question 14, a typical question on Mississippi's 80-item multiple-choice Subject Area Testing Program state-mandated test. It's preceded by a five-line excerpt from a poem that substitutes the word vow for promise in its first line as a possible revision. The four distractors (what we call the ABCD choices in test-world) suggest ways that the word vow might or might not affect the mood or tone of the poem, along with several iterations of possible author's purposes. Passing the test is required for high school gradation.
You are a high school sophomore who has most likely passed your English classes by memorizing rules and learning by rote; taking multiple-choice tests that involve simple identification or recognition. You sometimes get confused about which is the adjective or noun in a sentence.
You are largely unable to read silently for more than 10 minutes at a time. Perhaps you simply know how to call words. Most of the test reading items are poetry or nonfiction about such topics as bat-keeping or igloo-building. Most are three to five pages in your 8.5 x 11 test booklet.
You probably had Hot Cheetos and Gatorade for breakfast. Or perhaps for dinner, and then skipped breakfast because you were too tired, because your mother asked you to get up at 5:00 to iron the uniform she wears to serve at the Piccadilly.
So no, giving multiple choice tests is not a cop-out. I give multiple choice tests in my English II class because it's the only way my students will learn how to unpack questions like this one. I also have them plan Everest expeditions, and make news-cast videos about parrots who find treasure after house fires.
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