Nice obesity Poll

Should Americans do more to prevent childhood obesity?

[1]Yes, there should be mandatory testing and counseling at school

[2]Yes, more optional education for children should be available

[3]It is a problem, but it will hurt kids’ feelings to dwell on their weight

[4]No, it is not a big deal

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(from a small US newspaper site)

Multiple choice questions on exams are most enjoyable for me, not necessarily because they’re easy to figure out or even because if you don’t have a clue you still have a 20-25% chance of getting your ‘educated guess’ beign declared correct.

No, not because there isn’t much writing involved. In fact this type of question would almost be a disaster for the marginally confused. Well with the host of choices provided it would make them confused a 100% and lead to panic. That’s why short answer type doesn’t prove to be such a huge bai-izzati inciting threat, leaving it blank doesn’t automatically mean that you didn’t know the answer (it could be that you meant to do it at the end of the exam, but you forgot, among other perfectly acceptable terms) This is not the case on multiple choice. There is a 75-80% chance that the laystudent will prove how big of a fool he/she is…

Anyway, it seems that more and more literacy based evaluations include multiple choice questions these days. A huge chunk of Government high school exams have for years been mostly this type. This is the exact reason why most wonder how they barely escaped the F when they got above 80% for the class mark.

And so it’s working well­, actually better than any educator might have expected it to. The invention of Scantron marking systems, and widespread application of the same have made the marking process that much more streamlined for the teacher and ‘piece of cake’ seeming for the ever confident student.

However it is not as simple as it seems. Usually in a question that gives you 4 possible choices, two are usually pretty closely related to the question; what separates the ‘correct’ answer from the one you ‘think’ is the right answer is almost non-existent. Barely recognizable at best to infinitely interchangeable time and time again in most cases.

The best thing about any multiple choice exam (assuming it’s done right): the remainder of the rest. This is what I enjoy the most! These are the remaining 2 or 3 questions that you make yourself believe are true. Most do get fooled into doing so and end up losing a mark. This is where the bei-izati points really start to add up.

Precisely because of this reason I really look forward to multiple choice exams. They are much fun to go over, especially if it’s done right. Some of these possible answers get trapped in your long term memory and linger there for many days and bring many a spontaneous smile…

Actually the latter 2(or more) are the really ‘way out there’ ones which make no sense whatsoever and yet they confuse the overwhelming majority. Why even have these as a selection in the first place? They simply work as intended!

And now you know exactly how they work!

So it brings us to the poll at hand, since it relates to this subject so well:

Using the information provided above, Can you classify the 4 choices above into first the 2 logical categories then chose the CORRECT answer?

Should Americans do more to prevent childhood obesity?

[1]Yes, there should be mandatory testing and counseling at school

[2]Yes, more optional education for children should be available

[3]It is a problem, but it will hurt kids’ feelings to dwell on their weight

[4]No, it is not a big deal