From Multiple Choice Questions to Multiple Choice Answers

I have not posted much since a long time, but today I read some really good advice on how to deal with multiple choice answers. This is not so uncommon as we might think, every one of us have needed this type of questions while studying, how to deal with them has been a total challenge for me, and even more been able to explain in simple words what I did.

The following description is on of the best answers I have found until know:

First I create a question without worrying about possible multiple answers, like this:

Q: […] clothes are too bright or have too many bright designs
A: loud

Later Supermemo will present me the question for repetition.  Each time I answer it as designed (i.e. “loud”), I continue learning it without modification of the question. If I answer not as designed; but the answer is also correct (let say I answered “gaudy”) I give myself “Bad” mark and modify the question; adding “gaudy” in the synonym list in the question:

Q:
[…] clothes are too bright or have too many bright designs
-> gaudy
A: loud

Thus next time I see this question I will know that “gaudy” is not the designed answer and I will have to think of another one.

One might ask “what if I answered not as designed but I could not determine if my alternative answer had been also correct?”. That is another problem. I did not want to add an incorrect answer in the synonym list. Often I could not say for sure if the alternative answer had been correct; so I had to carry out a small investigation using dictionaries; internet, and advice of native speakers to determine that. It took time; but it allowed me to study language at a higher level of consciousness; so I think it was worth the time spent.

Please do not just read this extract, read the full article to understand how the author got to this conclusions.

I hope this was useful, until next time.

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