Bar Exam Structure.....

[oblada]

I took the PTO exam -- it was the epitome of the proverbial hoop that has to be jumped through. Most of the questions are poorly written and have little to do with practice. Indeed, when I took the Kayton course to prepare, Mr. Kayton said there was one exam where 28% of the questions were flawed in that there was either two correct answers, three correct answers or no correct answers. Well, in an open book exam with time constraints, its pretty disconcerning to try to pick the right answer when there is actually two or three right answers.

Some researchers in cognitive psychology have divided the thinking process into at least two levels: a surface level concerned mostly with retrieving information, and a deep cognitive level involving the synthesis and analysis of a variety of sources of information in order to interpret that information, solve a complicated problem, or create something new. A study that examined the thinking styles of 530 students and their performance on the SAT suggests that standardized tests may penalize students that tend to favor deeper approaches to problem solving. The researchers found that the group that scored highest on the SAT tended to use more superficial thinking strategies than those who scored in the low and moderate ranges. Also, the lowest-ranking students employed the deep approach more often than the higher scoring students. Of course some of the high scoring individuals may be extraordinarily capable, as they may possess some of the important qualities that the tests fail to detect. But these studies strongly suggest that standardized tests fail to measure the qualities that are truly important, reward the ability to adopt a superficial style of thinking, and may in fact penalize many of the candidates with the deepest minds.

This criticism of standardized tests is not new. Banesh Hoffman, professor of mathematics and former collaborator with Albert Einstein, made exactly this point in his 1962 book "The Tyranny of Testing." According to Dr. Hoffman, it is the multiple-choice format that is to blame. "Multiple choice tests penalize the deep student, dampen creativity, foster intellectual dishonesty, and undermine the very foundations of education" he remarked in a 1977 interview. What is it about multiple-choice tests that penalize the finer mind? Occasionally, individual questions are defective, with the wanted answer or all of the answers being incorrect. More frequently, questions are ambiguous so that more than one answer may be defended as plausibly being "the best", and only those candidates with deep minds are likely to notice the ambiguity and be troubled by it. However, according to Dr. Hoffman,

"It is not the presence of defective questions that makes the multiple-choice tests bad. Such questions merely make them worse. Even if all the questions were impeccable, the deep student would see more in a question than his more superficial competitors would ever dream was in it, and would expend more time and mental energy than them in answering it. That is the way his mind works. That is, indeed, his special merit. But the multiple-choice tests are concerned solely with the candidates choice of answer, and not with the reasons for his choise. Thus they ignore that elusive yet crucial thing we call quality."

[cookiebum]

The Sullivan lady ... she didn't study enough ... I think ...

[silvercannonca]

"Some professors will change the answers to certain multiple-choice questions on their final AFTER it has been given to students -- this way the "correct people" will have scored higher overall than the "incorrect" ones"

^^^^sounds to me like someone couldn't admit they are wrong.  and just HOW does the professor know which mc belongs to which student so they can pick the "correct" one?

[goldenchain]

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/students/index.php/topic,3530.0.html

[watchtell]

Interesting!

[scdd]

Very intersting, actually!

[niggalaw]

The Sullivan lady ... she didn't study enough ... I think ...

LOL cookiebum!

[K9]

I took the PTO exam -- it was the epitome of the proverbial hoop that has to be jumped through. Most of the questions are poorly written and have little to do with practice. Indeed, when I took the Kayton course to prepare, Mr. Kayton said there was one exam where 28% of the questions were flawed in that there was either two correct answers, three correct answers or no correct answers. Well, in an open book exam with time constraints, its pretty disconcerning to try to pick the right answer when there is actually two or three right answers.

Could someone vouch for the veracity of this post?

[blackjesus]

I took the PTO exam -- it was the epitome of the proverbial hoop that has to be jumped through. Most of the questions are poorly written and have little to do with practice. Indeed, when I took the Kayton course to prepare, Mr. Kayton said there was one exam where 28% of the questions were flawed in that there was either two correct answers, three correct answers or no correct answers. Well, in an open book exam with time constraints, its pretty disconcerning to try to pick the right answer when there is actually two or three right answers.

Could someone vouch for the veracity of this post?

Anyone?

[oldthreadsfutures]