Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Easter Clark]

When I was writing the questions for the exam, I made a mistake on one of the choices in that I left a word off. I told my co-teacher about it before the exams were printed. He then "corrected" the exam and had that copy printed up. Now is the week after exams, and upon looking at it, he didn't, in fact, add the missing word. So, in effect, there is no correct choice to one of the questions.

So now he wonders what "I" am going to do about it. It's not my fault that he failed to take my correction, instead using his own (incorrect) "correction.

What are our options?

[KYC]

exclude it from the exam or give everyone that question right.

[Harpeau]

Just give everybody a freebie.

[CentralCali]

The students will get a freebie. There will also be a huge mountain made out of this molehill: meetings, castigations, how not to have the problem again, and the next time a test is prepared, it will all be trotted out again. "Forgive and forget" are words that only appear in the dictionary at many schools in Korea.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

This happens to KTs all the time. With them, it's more commonly a case of a question having two or more plausible answers.

[Otherside]

Time for some BS:
Say that in (insert one of the following: British, South African, Australian, Irish, Idaho, wherever else you can pull off that your co-teacher is unfamiliar with) English, it C is the accepted correct answer. However, in American English the sentence would be better if the additional word was included.

example:
Fill in the blank.
I ____ going to school.
A. are
B. is
C. has
D not

The answer is clearly C.

[Easter Clark]

Thanks guys. I said we should just throw the question out / not count it, but was told that we can't do that unless we fill out several forms and get approval from the GPOE, then have each student who took the test answer the question again.

The solution (if you want to call it that) that I came up with was to choose the answer that has the fewest mistakes--the question was a mini-paragraph with four blanks, and each choice was a series of words that should go in those blanks. Only one of the choices has three of four answers correct, while the others only have one or two.

I know it's a thin excuse, but I am prepared to back it up--"In America it's perfectly acceptable. The reason the answer on the exam is different from the review sheet I gave you is because I want to teach students not to rely on memorization, and that conversation itself is spontaneous."

Hopefully it will work. I was told that teachers have been fired for these things before, because exams are so important in determining which college our students will get to enter. This even though I am at a tech HS where the highest score out of many classes is around the 70% mark, with many, many students scoring below 30%. In fact, I'd say the majority of students scored less than 50% on the English portion of their exams. Go figure.

[Dome Vans]

[KoreanAmbition]

I say call it "educational monitoring".

Say that the question was employed as a "decoy" question to see what students would choose as the "SECOND BEST" answer in a situation where the best answer was not present.


Take the tests... perform a simple statistical analysis comparing the % of wrong answers for each alternative. Then just show a simple bar-chart graph showing the % of students that chose each answer. Make up some jibberish about how the results "are" in fact interesting, that they chose a certain answer but not another.

Present the findings to the class as if you wanted to show them an interesting scientific finding in the absense of a needed word.

In the end, tell them the question was a bonus question that was intended to raise discussion in a class-room environment, and then thank them all for their "listening" to your little speech about it.

[Landros]

have him fill out the forms and report it. Who cares. His error.

[Easter Clark]

^

That may be my only option, since I was just given more "good" news. I can't change which answer is "correct," so I have to go with this garbage:

Question--

I'm so happy you _______ fun. _____ not working today. _____ swimming and my friend _________ a book.

The original answer (the one my co-teacher flubbed up)--

are having / I'm / I'm / is reading

The "answer" as it appeared on the test, and the one I'm forced to go with:

are having / I'm / is / reading

I don't see any way in the world I can justify this as being right, so I may have to go at this from another angle. Any more suggestions?

[Dodgy Al]

While invigilating, I have noticed some teachers will come in around the beginning of the exam and make a correction to the exam paper on the whiteboard. They state the question number, and correct possible answers. With your type of question, this shouldn't be a problem. If you go this route, I hope you brought your walking shoes! Maybe your co-teacher could help relay the message?

[Easter Clark]

Apologies if I wasn't clear in my OP. The students have already taken the exam. They took it last week, and this week I expect to be bombarded with questions about why that answer is the right one.

[Dodgy Al]

Oh dear. Well I guess the damage is done. Just ride the storm as best you can. And good luck!

[jadarite]

If they don't have the test anymore, then there is a good chance they don't remember the possible answers to choose from. So, on the board list a new set of answers, this time include the correct one.

Have them write on a piece of paper the correct answer (and their name!!). If they get it right, you give them some more points. If they still have it wrong, then their score remains the same.