An "exam-related" photo. The multiple choice portion. Smart students love multiple choice because it's fast and easy. If you can tie your shoes, you can pass a multiple choice exam. Unless the person who designed it was a weasel who tries to trip students up by making the questions and their answers incomprehensible to anyone without a secret decoder ring.

The weird thing is that dumb students love multiple choice, too. That's something I can't figure out. Other than its being a product of student paranoia. They somehow seem to think that multiple choice is "fairer" because it's objective (Their equally un-bright parents seem to think so, too. Witness the rise of "standardised testing".). The answer they give is either right or wrong. There's no room for their teacher's interpretation. Of course, given that most teachers want their students to pass (if for no other reason than not wanting to deal with the hassles that rain down on our heads when someone fails), multiple choice is the absolute worst test design for the, um, intellectually challenged. Precisely because the student's answer is right or wrong. Darn hard to give someone credit for having at least some vague idea of the material being tested. Virtually everyone I know who teaches for a living tries hard to find something - anything! - worthwhile in a sub-optimally-gifted student's answers to essay-style (even if the "essay" is all of two sentences long) questions.

Can you tell I'm in the middle of marking exams?