As the semester rolls on, everyone has spent a little more time testing and a lot more time stressing about testing. After all, it’s just awesome to know that you could spend hours learning material inside-out, only to fail a test where the professor decided the best way to test your knowledge of specific subject material was by sneaking in a misspelling or swapping out nearly-identical terms out of context, both of which could just as easily have been typos have been typos.
Seriously, professors who use trick questions should make page one of any test into a big red sign that says, “I’m going to try my darndest to trick you out of hours of studying!” I’ve spoken with students who could essentially recite all the contents of the lecture back to you, but they get back mediocre grades on their tests all because the professor thought it was more helpful to subvert expectations of questions rather than simply evaluate whether the student understands the material.
ProfessorsProfessors need to acknowledge that everyone learns and tests differently, and tricking students who know the right answers into giving the wrong ones is a system that ignores effort and makes students expect failure.
