Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time?
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Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time?
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
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
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
b is the correct answer
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
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
Impossible is Nothing.
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
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!
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!
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
Mine didn't do it either but they still passed. Don't worry!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
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
Having watched DS1 struggle to be random and then change a random answer because it was not random enough, wasting further time I said always go for E!
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
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
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
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.
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.
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
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.Isn't this what you all did in multiple choice exams at school? Isn't it second nature to most parents now?
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.
Re: Multiple choice - best strategy when running out of time
But if you pick the same letter every time you eliminate the possibility that you might guess them right every time...