<p>Would you prefer to take an exam or final only based on a lot of multiple choice questions or a few, free response questions that carry more weight? (And what kind are you usually subjected to?) Would your preferences be different when comparing math and history, for example?</p>
<p>I’ve wondered about this for a while and even though I really belong to the International Students’ forum I thought this would be the best place to ask. I’m from Sweden, and we don’t have multiple choice questions. At all. It doesn’t exist in the educational system at any level, and it applies to all subjects - math, history and so on. I might have taken about three tests during my 12 years in school with any hints towards them, but they pretty much didn’t count towards the final grade.</p>
<p>I absolutely hate multiple choice! I always overthink it and doubt myself, so I get a lot of wrong answers even when I know the correct answer because I don’t trust myself. I always get significantly better scores on free response tests. In free response questions, there are no wrong answers on the page so there is nothing that makes me doubt myself. Generally, multiple choice answers has a bunch of really similar answers, and I can see how the wrong ones may be right. </p>
<p>I want to go to college in Sweden now, lmao. No multiple choice testing is extremely appealing! </p>
<p>In engineering, most of the time it will be free response, which I like in the fact that you get to show your work and will get partial credit / get to show how smart you actually are to your professor.</p>
<p>Multiple choice oftentimes you can cheat off of the answers given by working backwards and the professor will never know. This really doesn’t test your problem solving skills… Ex: SAT, I would work backwards all the time because it is faster than solving the actual problem.</p>
<p>I would hate multiple choice in a social studies-ish setting, because it’s really hard to write short, correct alternatives that takes the question’s nuances into consideration. On the other hand, I wouldn’t protest as much to them in math and physics, actually. Now, the grading scale and everything is entirely different from in the US, but it’s extremely easy to lose points by answering 102,4π rater than 512π/5 for example. If there’s one tricky question you can’t answer and when those small things add up, you almost always lose enough drop a grade or two. On the other hand, solving problems under pressure will come in very handy some day - being able to take multiple choice exams will not. </p>
<p>I suppose I’d like some variation where you had to hand in the papers where you solved the questions, but ultimately answer multiple choice. I guess that’s a bit superflous though.</p>