Robin Padgham Piano Teacher

"Spot the odd one out"

A tale of four rabbits and a multiple choice exam question

A simple enough question, "Which rabbit is the odd one out?" but one person in the class was disappointed to have had his answer marked as incorrect. He had marked rabbit 'A' as the odd one out.

He was asked by his teacher why he had chosen rabbit 'A'.

His reply was that "It's the only rabbit that's not looking at another rabbit."

You can't fault his logic and his answer was indeed, arguably to his mind at least, correct. But not correct enough to get him an extra mark towards the total for his quiz.

The trend
The point is that multiple choice questions are exceedingly difficult to devise in a way that cannot be misinterpreted and aren't ambiguous. I have found myself looking through current music theory exam papers where an increasing reliance is placed on "ticking the correct answer" rather than writing a word or something in musical notation. It's rather distressing that the exam boards are shifting towards this style of questioning which, in my opinion, makes music theory even drier than it already was for many students. Questions about time signatures, key signatures, terms and signs, and more are asked in a manner that is completely removed from any musical context.

The reason
Well, this is easy. Online exams where answers can be presented and answered by a mouse-click, plus the obvious benefit of not having to employ costly examiners to mark the papers. But this comes with the loss of any creative input from the student. Isn't music supposed to be creative?

No melody writing for example. Admittedly, not everyone's favourite question, and one that traditionally would require significant care in marking, judging what the student had in mind, what they intended and were trying, musically, to achieve. Was the candidate wildly wide of the musical mark, or a budding genius? So much easier to mark when all that has to be checked is whether box 'C' was selected. Melody writing (and the writing of an 'answering rhythm' in earlier grades) gives so much scope to the candidate to demonstrate their knowledge and abilities, in the fully contextualised creative way. Ticking boxes does not.

Multiple choice questions
And what if the question was poorly devised in the first place? I've seen a few recently that have caused me to wince because of their horrible wording, confusing instructions or unhelpful layout. The difficulty of creating good, fair, and unambiguous multiple choice questions is well documented and discussed between respected educationalists.

The new way
The way of the modern world unfortunately, but I will always prefer the paper and pencil, in person exam scenario over anything that can be done online. Perhaps young students are relieved at being able to pass their exam without being able to draw a treble clef or actually write out a harmonic minor scale from scratch. When ticking boxes, the words 'Marks will be given for neatness and accuracy' no longer apply.

Maybe I am thinking too deeply and worrying too much, but I genuinely believe that the 'new way' is not the best way. Far from it.

Perhaps I should just spend my time practising drawing better rabbits than worrying about the current state of music exams that I have no control over...

Last Updated: 12th November 2024

"Spot the odd one out"

Last Updated: 12th November 2024