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Answering Objective Questions

Objective questions—multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, or matching—have specific correct answers. Read carefully to select the correct answer.

Multiple Choice

Multiple-choice questions start with a question or command and provide a number of optional answers. Read the entire question before selecting an answer, and follow these tips:

Comply with special instructions such as “select all” or “choose the best” when you make your answer.

Select all irrational numbers.

Consider multiple answers such as “Both A and B” or “All of these” instead of automatically choosing just one.

Which calculation results in 12?

Note negations such as “not” or “except,” which can make the question mean the opposite of what you expect.

What number below is not rational?

Move past distractor answers to find the correct response.

What is the root of -4?

True or False

True/false questions provide a statement that is either true or false. Carefully read the statement and follow these tips:

Beware words such as “all,” “always,” “none,” and “never,” which make a statement absolute and often false.

All fundamental particles have mass.

Carefully consider negatives such as “not,” “except,” or “without” to make sure you understand the statement’s meaning.

Photons and gluons are particles without mass.

Your Turn Study a recent test that you took. Search for examples of negations, absolute words, and distractor answers. Did you answer these trickier questions correctly? Which reminders on this page will prove most helpful to you on future tests?

 
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Fill in the Blank

Fill-in-the-blank questions provide sentences with blanks for missing words. You must provide the word or words that the test designer anticipates. As always, read carefully and follow these tips:

If “a” precedes a blank, write a singular word starting with a consonant sound.

If “an” precedes a blank, write a singular word with a vowel sound.

To demand that a prisoner be realsed from unlawful detention, a lawyer can file...

Use singular or plural words in the rest of the sentence to decide if the missing word is singular or plural.

The rights that are read to a person being arrested are called the ....

Write a response in each blank when multiple blanks are provided.

Lincoln pledged that "governemtn ... ..., and ... shall not perish from the earch."

Matching

Matching questions require you to match items in one column with items in another. Often, one column will contain words and the other column definitions or examples. Read both columns completely before matching any items. Then start with the column that holds the longer phrases (definitions or examples), and work to match those to the shorter terms in the other column. Follow these tips:

Deal with similar items with subtle differences at the same time to better ensure correct matches.

Matching

Leave confusing items until the end, when a process of elimination can help in finding the correct match.

Your Turn List unfamiliar terms from a class and use them to create test questions:

  1. Create a set of fill-in-the blank questions, focusing on the terms.
  2. Create a matching exercise with terms and scrambled definitions.

Ask a classmate to complete the activities, and keep a copy of your “quiz” as a study aid for a unit exam.

 

Additional Resources