Are you preparing for a competitive examination involving multiple choice objective type question?

Last updated on December 2nd, 2014 at 03:14 pm

No one can avoid going through a competitive examination for getting selected in premier institute of higher education, Government Job for any group, i.e. A, C and D, Public Sector Units and Bank and even Private organization. The competitive examination may either be objective type or a mix of objective and subjective examination. There are certain advantages associated with  the objective type examination which led to its wide application in all competitive examinations.

What is an objective type test?

Objective tests are psychological tests that measure an individual’s characteristic in a way that is independent of rater bias or the individual’s own beliefs. Objective tests are often contrasted with subjective tests, which are sensitive to rater or examinee beliefs. They can also be contrasted with projective tests which are based on Freudian Psychology (Psychoanalysis), and seek to expose the unconscious perceptions of people. Objective tests tend to be more reliable and valid than projective or subjective tests. Objective tests require a user to choose or provide a response to a question whose correct answer is predetermined. Such a question might require a student to:

1. Select a solution from a set of choices (MCQ, true-false, matching). MCQ also has two varieties, namely when there is only one current answer and another with more than one correct answer. (Note: More than one correct answer is very difficult to answer and generally not followed for group C and D examination of Govt. of India.)
2. Identify an object or position (graphical hotspot). These questions are generally to assess general intelligence and psychological testing followed for Asstt. Loco Pilot examination.
3. Supply brief numeric or text responses.

The advantages conceived by the management, conducting the examination are

1. High level of objectivity in selection procedure
2. Completely reliable and transparent
3. Extremely accurate with little scope of any disgruntlement and fraud
4. It is economical when a great number of candidates appearing in the exam
5. As the evaluation is objective, more than one question paper can be used to avoid copying and leak of paper.
6. It is possible to cover a range of subject and content for the examination
7. For fair play, making of question paper is difficult, expensive and requires thorough knowledge of the subject for the paper setter. Difficult lies in constructing destractors which are wrong, but very close to the text of the question.

Multiple Choice Question

Multiple choice question is, having a stem which is either in the form of question beginning with  Why, What, When, Where, How etc. or completion of the statement of the question. There are generally four answers to the question of which one is correct. The remaining three are called distracters.

How to attempt objective questions intelligently?

As stated above, it is difficult to form MCQ particularly when there is only one correct answer.  Difficult is mainly to compile distracts and the examination setter looks for many ways to specify it. It is easier to write destractors for general awareness and intelligence, but difficult for technical questions. One can understand the difficulty and what goes in his mind only when if he makes trying to construct the question. I managed this by laying out multiple choice objective questions and here are some points that can help in identifying the distracters.

1. When you know the correct answer it will strike you immediately, tick mark with confidence. Be careful that sometime the question is formed in such a way that meaning of the correct answer changes, and therefore, it is better to read other distracters and drop that possibility before ticking your option.
2. The other choices are called distracters which means to distract you from the right answer
3. There are many cases of candidates getting distracted easily and ticking wrongly even when fully aware of the basic fundamental because of the language of the stem or the language used for the options. Be careful.
4. When you don’t know the correct answer, resort to process of elimination and the first step is to eliminate one option first and than proceed ahead. Process of first elimination increases confidence.
5. While attempting technical questions related to cause and effect, the effect is generally increase (more, up, high, large), decrease ( less, down, shallow, small), or no change with fourth distracter is either ‘none or all’ or irrelevant. In such questions, no change and fourth answer is generally not the correct answer. Look for the possibility between increase and decrease based on your knowledge or related formula. It happens many a times that you evaluate increase, but ticks decrease. One need to attempt as many mock drills as possible and learn from the way you commit mistakes.
6. There is always a formula associated with the cause and effect relationship. You should be clear about the proportionality relationship, i.e. direct, inverse, square root, square, etc. The relationship is deformed in destractors which looks like the same.
7. Options that use the words “always,” “none” or “never” are less likely to be true than “usually” or “probably.”
8. Learn the trick how to whether the distracter is true or false
9. If the question ends with ‘a’ or ‘an’, then the first letter of the correct answer will be a non-vowel or vowel. Therefore, make use of the knowledge of English grammar to identify wrong distracts.
10. The questions requiring formula or some mathematical calculation, the calculation will always be simple. Be sure it will always be simple except that you should be able to solve it correctly. While doing such calculations, assume the value of constant like g as 10 m/sec² (using 9.81 m/sec² will make the calculation difficult), know the conversion from Km/h to m/sec on your finger trips, density of water as 1000 Kg/m³
11. Some time you forget the formula correctly, if that is the case, you can rectify by matching the units in right and left hand side. Suppose time period of pendulum is T = 2π√l/g; and you get confused if it is √g/l, than the unit on the right hand will be 1/sec and will help you in taking correct decision.
12. How one can remember places, capital of countries or Indian states, personalities, books, etc. Such questions are generally from current affairs. Read the places/capital, where international games, international conferences, disaster or natural calamity took place, etc. One should go through the details of the last one year current affairs and it will help to answer many questions. However, history, geography, mountain and rivers, freedom fighters, famous personalities, sports achievement shall be studied.
13. You should not run through the question but take your time as provided, generally one minute per question.
14. Believe it, multiple choice questions are not very difficult but itisthe application of correct thought process at the time of ticking the options. Look at this question
    • The coefficient of thermal expansion depends on (1) length of the rod (2) Length of rod and temperature (3) Temperature (4) None

Everyone has to be make his own tools to avoid wrong answers to the question which you know fully  and identifying correct answer when you are sure of at least two wrong answers. Balance questions shall not be attempted by guess-work when there is negative marking. The correct answer of the above question is option 4 but most of us answer it wrongly as (2)