We Learn from Answers

A teacher can state a fact and it usually takes effort to remember what the teacher has said. On the other hand, when a teacher asks a question, the lecture becomes a bit more participatory. A question often engages the audience and when the question is further explored, the answer at the end becomes a bit easier to remember. In my high school physics class, I still remember the time my teacher asked a question similar to the one described below:

Above copied from The Education Scientist

And I cannot delete from my memory the answer my teacher provided: When the ice melts, the water will overflow. It is the wrong answer yet it manages to stay in my mind.

Obviously, questions asked and then answered describe what a graded exam entails. We can learn from a test. An exam that allows a student to find out what he or she does not know is a formative assessment. We can learn from mistakes. And as in my experience, I can remember the answer of my teacher. It is therefore disconcerting to see exams that are both written and graded poorly. The following are photos of exam questions posted by Joy Rizal on Facebook:

Looking at the above, a student cannot really tell which is grammatically correct: "Which set of numbers" or "Which set of number". This maybe nitpicky, but the other examples shown below are not as harmless:

Joy kindly provided a translation of the above question:

I must do the following to prepare for school. 

A. pray
B. wear our uniform
C. bathe and eat
D. put away / make the bed

And as shown in the above photo of a graded exam, the answer is A. Another example is shown below:

Apparently, the answer to the above question according to DepEd is "B". The correct answer is "A" so the student actually got this right.

Above copied from Explain That Stuff

Joy Rizal adds:

We have no books, can not get photocopies of material, and instructors simply say they are following the DepEd curriculum but do not elaborate. And no one has time to give us any information. We are basically left with no information regarding to what our children are being taught under our current DepEd administration.

It is truly disconcerting to see exams that are both written and graded poorly. This is the height of miseducation....