After reading an article on Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in a Rolling Stone magazine, these are two examples of questions that I would ask my students on a test (in a multiple-choice format.) These questions are also representative of two different levels of Blooms taxonomy. 1) As a member of the Grateful Dead, what was Jerry Garcias only radio, billboard hit single? Touch of Grey.2) In chronological order, identify which answer represents the progression of keyboard players (pianists) that Jerry Garcia played with in the Grateful Dead?a) Brent Midland, Pigpen, Vince Wellnick, Keith Godchauxb) Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, Brent Midland, Vince Wellnickc) Keith Godchaux, Brent Midland, Vince Wellnick, Pigpene) Vince Wellnick, Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, Brent MidlandCorrect answer: bI feel that these are good examples of multiple-choice questions because they do not include in the answer section choices such as, none of the above, or all of the above. It helps to omit choices like these because these answers do not contribute in measuring students mastery of the subject or in teaching unlearned material. These questions both have discriminatory power, allowing me to see who has mastered the material and who hasnt. The distracters that I selected for these questions are the key ingredients that help me see who has mastered the subject. The distracters are not obvious wrong answers, they are choices that make the students think, which ultimately raises the cognitive level of the test beyond that of just memorization and recall.I believe that my questions are clear and easily understood. They should not make the student unnecessarily use energy in figuring out exactly what the question is asking. Also in an attempt to make the question as clear as possible I avoided the use of jargon and other complicated terms. I only used words that would be common to their vocabulary. I also avoided using negative test words such as, not and never. By doing...
