In 1914, a professor in Kansas invented the multiple choice test. Yes, it’s only about a hundred years old.
There was an emergency. World War I was ramping up, hundreds of thousands of new immigrants needed to be processed and educated, and factories were hungry for workers. The government had just made two years of high school mandatory, and we needed a temporary, highly efficient way to sort students and quickly assign them to appropriate roles.
In the words of Professor Frederick J. Kelly, “This is a test of lower order thinking for the lower orders.”
After the war, as President of the University of Idaho, Kelly disowned the concept, pointing out that it was an effective way to test only a tiny portion of what is actually taught and should be abandoned. The industrialists and the mass educators revolted and he was promptly fired by the university administration.
Kelly never intended to make his baby the gold standard. Yet the SAT, still the single most important filter and determiner of a student’s progress, is still based on Kelly’s lower-order thinking test. Same with just about everything, from No Child Left Behind exams to tests for medical and law school admission. The reason is simple. Not because it works. No, we do it because it’s easy and keeps the massive train of students moving forward.
So what am I trying to get across? Well, it’s straightforward. Doing well on a multiple choice test is a poor indicator of whether or not you know the material, since familiarity with the answer choices is often more important than understanding the nuances of the question.
So, do yourself a favor. Assume every exam will require you to write, to explain your reasoning, and to prove that you actually know what you know.
Focus on the underlying concepts. Build a holistic picture. Use recall. Practice your responses. Know more than you’re expected to know, and you’ll never have to worry about tests again.