[orgo814]

This is just to see everyone's opinion...

For freshmen chemistry students, should multiple choice be included on exams or no? I've seen professors that have made exams all multiple choice, half multiple choice and half open ended, or all open ended. It seems that in upper level courses, professors tend to give mostly open ended exams (particularly in P-chem).. so giving open ended freshman exams would prepare students for this testing style. However, most professors argue they must give a lot of multiple choice on exams to prepare students for standardized tests such as the MCAT or ACS. I feel with an open ended testing style you can ask more difficult questions and see how students apply the knowledge they learned to these difficult scenarios (isn't that how you can see if a student really learned how to apply the material?). But, with multiple choice, students can get used to answering questions they will likely see on standardized exams. I'm very against teaching to a test but it may be necessary in this case. I'm not a teacher, but this difference in testing style from professor to professor has always interested me.

[408]

No higher level class I have attended or helped teach has ever used multiple choice.  The fewer the students in the class, the more in depth the answers are required to be.  Marking time.  In an introductory level class, higher student populations makes shorter answers or multiple choice almost mandatory.  Sure you will get a few coasters on a multiple choice test, but they are easily seen in higher levels.

[eazye1334]

Most of my upper courses were open-ended tests with 6-10 questions that rolled everything into one. The earlier courses were usually a mix. In all honesty, by the time a student gets to an MCAT level, if they don't know the tricks of multiple choice questions, I don't think they're going to do well anyway. Open-ended questions are much better for understanding material, and if you understand the material you should be able to answer multiple choice questions about it.

[JGK]

the last time I did a multiple choice exam was in my Math O level in the late 70s. However you scored:

1 for a correct answer
0 for no selection
-1 for an incorrect answer

this dicourages guessing 

[kriggy]

the last time I did a multiple choice exam was in my Math O level in the late 70s. However you scored:

1 for a correct answer
0 for no selection
-1 for an incorrect answer

this dicourages guessing

Yeah..
Last "multiple choice only" test I did was exactly like this but was -0,5pts for wrong answer. 30 pts out fo 50 was needed. Its great to discourage guessing thats for sure. I guesssed like 7 answers becaus after filling the all I was sure I know I had only 28 answers marked.