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Blackey  \nCalifornia State University, San Bernardino  \n“Don’T woRRy, HowaRD,” says a wife to her husband in a New Yorker cartoon (by Victoria Roberts) from a few years ago,“The big questions are multiple choice.” and so they maybe if the ubiquity of standardized and regular classroom testing is any indication. Taking these often high-pressure, high-stakes tests presents, if not overwhelms, students with numerous questions and four-to-five times as many choices accompanied by time constraints. When the correct answer is not immediately identified, many students guess randomly or choose blindly. Such rash approaches save time by taking just a fraction of a second, but they do not allow the students to apply their knowledge to a question, increasing the chances for poor grades. There are, instead, more effective ways to resolve the virtually inevitable indecision when taking such exams.  \nLearning as much as possible about what to expect and how best to select among response choices enables students to improve their scores soas to reflect more fully their knowledge and abilities, whether taking the SaT, aCT, aP history exams, multiple-choice exams in college courses, the GRE, or any other standardized examinations that include multiplechoice questions in history, including required statewide exams for grades 6 through 12. with this in mind, many students across age levels enroll  \nThe History Teacher Volume 43 number 1 november 2009 © Robert Blackey  \n2 Robert Blackey  \nin test preparation courses while others search websites or purchase test prep books, some of which do, indeed, provide useful information and suggestions along with sample questions—although many of these sample questions are available online or have been published by state teaching commissions or boards and testing organizations such as the College Board. what follows is a thorough collection of strategies and insights that are useful, if not critical, for maximizing performance, especially in the areas of history and social studies (although most can also be adapted to other academic areas) . By way of a caveat, however, it should be stressed that these strategies will work optimally only when coupled with the development of skills to think historically 1 as well as with significant understanding and studying of course or subject matter material.  \nFor his own preparation to write this essay, the author has compiled more than thirty years of experience writing and reviewing multiplechoice questions for advanced Placement and other College Board and Educational Testing Service (ETS) programs; he has served on several test development committees at the state and national level; he has read and, in some cases, adapted suggestions from published test preparation books2 ; he has examined published multiple-choice questions from the California Standards Tests (CST)—administered to secondary school students—and from the California Subject Examinations for Teachers (CSET)—taken by prospective secondary school teachers; he has reviewed banks of multiplechoice questions that are available to teachers and typically accompany textbooks for United States, western, and world history survey courses; he has surveyed recently published multiple-choice questions from United States, European, and world History aP exams; and he has written, and revised, many multiple-choice questions for his own courses.3  \nStructure and Types of Multiple-Choice Questions  \nTo begin, this section highlights a few terms commonly used by the College Board, ETS, and many others test administrators.4 Multiple-choice questions typically begin with a stem, which directs students to pick the correct answer from among four or five choices, or options. ordinarily, each of the options is comparable in length to some or all ofthe remaining options for the question, so that no single option, and","cbCaioorJ0UKdFiS","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaioorJ0UKdFiS","pdf",299605,14,"English","# Structure and Types of Multiple-Choice Questions\n## Traditional linear questions\n## Complete the stem questions\n## Analysis questions\n## Missing word, words, or phrase questions\n## Questions that include visuals","[{\"question\":\"Why do students perform worse on multiple-choice history exams when they cannot identify the correct answer quickly?\",\"answer\":\"Many students guess randomly or choose blindly to save time, which prevents them from applying knowledge to the question and increases the likelihood of poor grades.\"},{\"question\":\"What key preparation enables students to select response choices more effectively?\",\"answer\":\"Learning what to expect on the exam and practicing how best to choose among response options helps students improve scores in line with their actual knowledge and abilities.\"},{\"question\":\"What types of multiple-choice questions are commonly included in history assessments?\",\"answer\":\"The document highlights traditional linear questions, complete-the-stem questions, analysis questions, missing-word/phrase questions, and questions that include visuals such as graphs, maps, and political cartoons.\"}]","So Many Choices, So Little Time - Strategies for Understanding and Taking Multiple-Choice Exams in History | PDF",35]