Creating Effective Matching Questions for Assessments

As teachers create their own tests and quizzes, they typically want to include a variety of objective questions. The four major types of objective questions include multiple choice, true-false, fill-in-the-blank, and matching. Matching questions are made up of two lists of related items that students must pair up by deciding which item in the first list corresponds to an item in the second list. They are appealing to many teachers because they provide a compact way to test a great deal of information in a short amount of time. However, creating effective matching questions requires some time and effort. Advantages of Using Matching Questions Matching questions have a number of advantages. As already stated, they are great at allowing teachers the ability to ask a number of questions in a short amount of time. In addition, these types of questions are quite useful for students with a low reading ability. According to Benson and Crocker (1979) in Educational and Psychological Measurement, students with low reading ability scored better and more consistently with matching questions than the other types of objective questions. They were found to be more reliable and valid. Thus, if a teacher has a number of students who have lower reading scores, they might want to consider including more matching questions on their assessments. Hints for Creating Effective Matching Questions The directions for a matching question need to be specific. Students should be told what they are matching, even if it seems obvious. They should also be told how they are to record their answer. Further, the directions need to clearly state whether an item will be used once or more than once. Here is an example of well-written matching directions:Directions: Write the letter of the American president on the line next to his description. Each president will be used only once.Matching questions are made up of premises (left column) and responses (right column). More responses should be included than premises. For example, if you have four premises, you might want to include six responses.The responses should be the shorter items. They should be organized in an objective and logical manner. For example, they might be organized alphabetically, numerically, or chronologically.Both the list of premises and the list of responses should be short and homogenous. In other words, do not put to o many items on each matching question.All responses should be logical distractors for the premises. In other words, if you are testing authors with their works, do not throw in a term with its definition.Premises should be approximately equal in length.Make sure that all of your premises and responses are on the same test printed page. Limitations of Matching Questions Even though there are a number of advantages to using matching questions, there are also a number of limitations that teachers must consider before including them in their assessments. Matching questions can only measure factual material. Teachers cannot use these to have students apply the knowledge they have learned or analyze information.They can only be used to assess homogenous knowledge. For example, a question based on matching elements with their atomic numbers would be acceptable. However, if a teacher wanted to include an atomic number question, a chemistry definition, a question about molecules, and one about states of matter, then a matching question would not work at all.They are most easily applied at an elementary level. Matching questions work quite well when the information being tested is basic. However, as a course increases in complexity, it is often difficult to create effective matching questions.

Analysis Of The Article How America Can Free Itself Of...

The excessive use of oil in the United States has been a very controversial debate with American experts and scientists. In his article â€Å"How America Can Free Itself of Oil-Profitability,† Amory Lovins addresses the many different issues associated with excessive oil consumption and the risks versus the benefits. Amory Lovins is a physicist, environmental scientist, writer, and Chairman/Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has written numerous research articles arguing for the use of renewable energy and alternatives for oil. Lovins also regularly gives presentations to other environmentalists discussing the pros and cons of oil consumption. It is clear that his target audience is the demographic of academics, scientists,†¦show more content†¦In paragraph 6 Lovins states that â€Å"Inefficient light trucks and cars, which consume 40% of our oil, are at the center of our oil habit. And ultralight and ultrastrong materials for vehicles are the No. 1 enabling technology for changing that.† He reaffirms this point with many more facts and statistics throughout this article. Lovins’ other main point is the benefit of using biofuels as a substitute for oil. He encourages his point of view in paragraph one on page three by saying that â€Å"Oil industry giants like Shell and BP are already preparing to move beyond oil by transforming themselves into energy companies.† Lovins’ argument is valid and provides good evidence to support his point of view. He mainly uses logos in his arguments. This article is full of statistics which may make the argument valid, but does not necessarily make it a good, well rounded argument. Although Lovins did a very good job using logos, he missed some very easy opportunities to use ethos and pathos in his argument as well. Providing information on how much America’s overconsumption of oil is negatively affecting the environment would be a very effective method of using ethos and pathos in his argument without deviating from his â€Å"logos-style† of writing. To effectively use ethos and pathos, Lovins could have provided statistics on how many

American Revolutionary War and Urban Artisans free essay sample

How did Britain attempt to restructure its colonial empire from 1688 to 1763? Were the years of the early eighteenth century a period of salutary neglect? Britain attempted to restructure its colonial empire from 1688 to 1763. One of various attempts was constructing a more coherent administration. In 1696, a professional Board of Trade replaced the old Lords of Trade and Parliament created overseas vice- admiralty courts. This would help England control who its colonies traded with and the vice-admiralty courts would help, without Juries, prosecute smugglers who evaded the trade regulations set forth in the Navigation Acts. By doing all this England was quietly installing a machinery of imperial management tended by a corps of colonial bureaucrats. Parliament was mainly concerned with economic regulation and so added new articles such as fur, copper, and hemp to the list of items produced in the colonies, which had to be shipped to England before being shipped to another country. Parliament also curtailed colonial production of articles important to Englands economy but most importantly the passed the Molasses Act in 1733. Although Parliament tried to restructure its colonies by trying to stop colonial rade with other countries, it was unsuccessful because the acts, laws, and taxes were not enforced completely. For example,one attempt of stopping trade between New England and the French West Indies was by imposing a prohibitive duty of six pence per gallon on French slave-produced molasses. This turned many of New Englands largest merchants and distillers into smugglers. The years of the early eighteenth century were a period of salutary neglect. This was a time of peace or was actually a period of time-out in which both England and France used in the years until 1739 to strengthen their war-making capacity. Though this was known as a eriod of salutary neglect, in reality it was an era when King and Parliament increased their control over colonial affairs. what made republicanism a revolutionary ideology in the eighteenth century? What criticisms did revolutionary Americans level against the British mo narchy? Between 1763 to 1774 the colonists had been expressing many reactions to the crisis with Britain. Most of these reactions took the form of newspaper articles and pamphlets which were written by educated lawyers, clergymen, merchants, and planters. But not Just the educated expressed themselves, the middling and lower ranks of society did as well. This part of the society did so in printed broad-sides, appeals on newspaper, and even ideologically ladden popular rituals. From this, the colonists pieced together a political ideology, which borrowed partly from English political thought, the theories of the Enlightenment, and their own experiences. This new ideology was called revolutionary republicanism. But no single coherent ideology united the colonists. Revolutionary Americans began to criticize the and desperate of imperial depotism for the extinction of all civil liberty. Because of this belief, every ministerial policy and parliamentary act in the decade after the tamp act appearred as a subversion of English liberties. By 1774, John Adam was writing of the conspiracy against the public liberty that was first regularly formed and began to be executed in 1763 and 1764. Another writer who shared his ideas from London was Benjamin Franklin. He described the extreme corruption prevalent among all orders of men in the old rotten state. Many other writers like them expressed their thoughts as well. Merchants also expressed their beliefs. Since the attack on constitutional rights blended closely with the threats to their economic nterest, many merchants saw a coordinated attack on their lives, liberties, and property. According to many, if a man was not secure in his property, he could nott be secure in his citizenship, for it was property that gave a man the independence to shape his identity. These were some of the various forms of criticisms made by the revolutionary Americans. How did the growing revolutionary sentiment from 1764 to 1776 impact urban artisans, women, and farmers. The growing sentiment from 1764 to 1776 had an impact on urban artisans, women, and backcountry farmers in America. The urban artisans played an mportant role in forging and enforcing a non importation agreement in 1768. They were the ones who called public meetings, published newspaper appeals, organized boycotts, and tarred and feathered their opponents. Many merchants complained on what the artisans were doing. They said that mere artisans had no right to give their sentiments respecting an importation. But artisons did not care for what they had to say and forged ahead. By1772 artisans began lobbying for reform laws, were filling elected municipal positions, and insisted on their right to participate in nominating assemblymen and other important officeholders. And by 1774, the working classs meddling in state affairs reached a bold new stage- a defacto assumption of governmental powers by committees created by the people at large. Women also played an important role in the movement toward revolution. There most important role was to facilitate the boycott of Enlish goods. Besides that, women also signed nonimportation agreements, harssed complying merchants and helped organize fast days. Women were the key to making the nonconsumption pacts a success. They would weave cloth and spin yarn. The women began to have contests to publicize heir commitment and in 1769, the women of tiny Middletown, Massachusetts, set the standard by weaving 20,522 yards of cloth, about 160 yards each. And after the Tea Act, the interjection of politics into the household economy increased as patriotic women boycotted their favorite drink. Nonetheless, women played a vital role in the movement toward revolution. Farmers formed associations after getting no satisfaction from legals forms of protest , which were called Regulators. Regulators forcibly closed courts, attacked the property of their enemies, and whipped and pblicly humiliated Judges and lawyers. These actions were a key role in the