Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started.
Teachers are frantically bombarding their students with Exam Practice Papers these days - some have been doing so for months already. Despite my best efforts, this type of lesson remains super-boring for the students and a preparation-free, revert-to-speaking-in-100%-Chinese lesson for the teachers. What’s worse is that the teachers and students believe fervently that wading through literally hundreds of multiple choice questions is teaching them something and will mean better exams results. I doubt it. And then there’s the papers themselves. Despite being produced by a wide variety of publishers they are all, without exception, appalling.
Check these out:
1. “Pick the right picture” (and all four pictures have photocopied as solid black squares).
2. Many multiple-choice questions have two or three quite legitimate possible answers. For example, the perplexing...
Anne and Jenny are my ______
(a) teachers (b) friends (c) sisters (d) brothers
3. And often, the answers are just plain wrong. I saw these “correct” answers today:
She has carly hair. (well, Carly does...)
Is the weather like today? (what?)
Eating apples can made you healthy. (you make a mistake!)
I’m poor so I can’t play for it. (play for the FA Cup, perhaps?)
He’s a straight man. (maybe this one is intentional?)
She is learning Italian dish. (a cook maybe?)
I’ll retire and grow lives. (Nope. Not a clue on this one!)
Penguins are the kings of cats (my personal favourite ...!?)
4. Even the “English Language Revision TV Programme” regularly makes a hash of things:
He ________ harder last year than before.
(a) study (b) studies (c) was studying (d) studied
What do you think? Both (c) and (d) look fine to me, but the programme insisted the right answer was (b)??
1. “Pick the right picture” (and all four pictures have photocopied as solid black squares).
2. Many multiple-choice questions have two or three quite legitimate possible answers. For example, the perplexing...
Anne and Jenny are my ______
(a) teachers (b) friends (c) sisters (d) brothers
3. And often, the answers are just plain wrong. I saw these “correct” answers today:
She has carly hair. (well, Carly does...)
Is the weather like today? (what?)
Eating apples can made you healthy. (you make a mistake!)
I’m poor so I can’t play for it. (play for the FA Cup, perhaps?)
He’s a straight man. (maybe this one is intentional?)
She is learning Italian dish. (a cook maybe?)
I’ll retire and grow lives. (Nope. Not a clue on this one!)
Penguins are the kings of cats (my personal favourite ...!?)
4. Even the “English Language Revision TV Programme” regularly makes a hash of things:
He ________ harder last year than before.
(a) study (b) studies (c) was studying (d) studied
What do you think? Both (c) and (d) look fine to me, but the programme insisted the right answer was (b)??
