Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time?

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Villagedad
Posts: 526
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 5:22 pm
Location: Tonbridge & Tunbridge Wells

Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time?

Post by Villagedad »

Dear all

Quick question. If your DC is in the exam doing multiple choice questions and running out of time fast what is the best strategy to ensure they at least put something down?

a) tick the remaining question answers randomly (e.g. a, c, b, d etc)
b) tick the same answer (e.g. all b's)

My head is telling me b) above as you're bound to get some correct, but any ideas statistically what's the best approach?

Many thanks
Villagedad
mitasol
Posts: 2756
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:59 am

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by mitasol »

b is the correct answer :mrgreen:
sherry_d
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Location: Maidstone

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by sherry_d »

I told mine to do that and she said she forgot to do it in the test because she didnt hear the 1min/30sec countdown :roll:
Impossible is Nothing.
Belinda
Posts: 1167
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:57 pm

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by Belinda »

I always advised mine to put all D's down.

Statistically, any of A-E could be the right answer but in practice papers the longer, individual 'eliminate/work-it-out' type questions always seemed to have a D or E answer!
mitasol
Posts: 2756
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:59 am

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by mitasol »

Sherry wrote:I told mine to do that and she said she forgot to do it in the test because she didnt hear the 1min/30sec countdown
Mine didn't do it either but they still passed. Don't worry! :D
stevew61
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Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:54 pm
Location: caversham

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by stevew61 »

Having watched DS1 struggle to be random and then change a random answer because it was not random enough, wasting further time :roll: I said always go for E! :lol:
mum23*
Posts: 417
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 1:28 pm

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by mum23* »

I'm with Belinda on that D option, nearly all the papers we did had D for the information type Qs, in fact it became a bit of a standing joke and I had to say please stop guessing those! which was hard when they kept getting them right by guessing D!!! If you really run out of time go D
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by mystery »

I really don't think it makes a difference whether you guess all the same, or all different. There's a one in five chance each time that you are right.

I would emphatically say don't wait until the last minute and a half to do this. Do it to any question you are not sure about as you are going through the paper. Don't struggle for ages with one question. Guess and move on. Keep a note of the ones that you guessed. Then in the last few minutes (if you have them) spend your time going back to these questions and try to work out the correct answer.

Never leave gaps as you work through the paper as 1) you are potentially throwing away some marks. A guess takes no time at all. 2) if you leave gaps there is a chance that you slip a line in your responses so that all your correct answers become wrong because you put them next to the wrong question number.

Isn't this what you all did in multiple choice exams at school? Isn't it second nature to most parents now?

The only exams you would not wish to do this in are ones with penalty marks for incorrect answers. But the 11+ is not one of these.
Chilled
Posts: 118
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:13 pm

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by Chilled »

Isn't this what you all did in multiple choice exams at school? Isn't it second nature to most parents now?
They didn't have multiple choice exams when I was at school. If you didn't know the answer and wrote down your guess it was obvious to the teacher that you didn't really know. There was no possibility that you were going to make a lucky guess and get it right.

I'd guess all the same, if you had to miss out 10 questions the hope would be that at least 1 or 2 of them would be your choice, preferably more! If you chose a random letter for each one you could guess wrong every time.
mike1880
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Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time

Post by mike1880 »

:lol: But if you pick the same letter every time you eliminate the possibility that you might guess them right every time...
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