A Linguistic Approach to Test-Taking

My mom sent me this activity that she was required to do in her education class. It's supposed to illustrate how to write poor exam questions, the idea being that if you're a savvy test-taker, you will be able to get all these answers right, even without knowing what any of the words mean. Involved in the process of doing this are a lot of neat linguistic observations, so I thought I'd share the activity with you. If you happen to teach linguistics to education majors, you can also tie into their interests even more with this.

Try taking the test first:

1. What is the primary purpose of the cluss in frumpaling?

A. To remove clussprangs

B. To patch tremalis

C. To loosen cloughs

D. To repair plumots

2. The fribbled breg will ninter best with an

A. Mors

B. Ignu

C. Derst

D. Sortar

3. Why does the sigla frequently overfesk the trelsum?

A. All sigla are mellious

B. Siglas are always votial

C. The trelsum is usually tarious

D. No trelsa are directly feskable

4. Trassign normally occurs under which of the following conditions?

A. When dissles frull

B. When lusp trasses the vom

C. When the belgo lisks easily

D. When the viskal flans, if the viskal is zorti

5. What probable causes are indicated when doss occurs in a composts?

A. The sabs foped and the doths tinzed

B. The kredges roted with the rots

C. The rakogs were not accepted in the

D. The polats were thenced in the sluth

6. Which of the following is/are always present when trossels are being gruven?

A. Rint and vost

B. Vost

C. Shum and vost

D. Vost and plone

7. The nintering function of the ignu is most effectively performed in connection with the

A. Arazma tol

B. Groshing stantol

C. Fribbled breg

D. Frallied stantels

8.

A.

B.

C.

D.

Now check the answer key to see how well you did.

1. The answer is A. There is cluss in the question and in the answer. It makes sense cluss would be in the answer.

2. The answer is B. B is correct because you have (an) so the answer has to start with a vowel.

3. The answer is C. It is the only answer that is not absolute and there are not many absolute answers in life.

4. The answer is D. D is the only answer that contains a condition and the longest answer is usually the right one.

5. The answer is A. It is the only answer that has two causes. With the "and" you must have two causes – the question is plural so the answer is plural.

6. The answer is B. Vost is in every answer so it must be B.

7. The answer is C. The earlier question talked about the fribbled breg and the ignu. You could look back at the other question and deduce the answer.

8. The answer is D. The test is following a pattern ABCD, ABCD.

You could apply this test to your class one question at a time, telling the students at the beginning of the year that you're going to have "pop quizzes" and pulling this out as a silly attention grabber every time, using only whichever question is applicable to the unit you're starting: #2 for phonology, #1 and #6 for morphology (6 is not directly related but helps with the concept of figuring out how to do a morphology problem), #3 and #4 with semantics (discussing the features of "frequently" and "usually" or "conditions" and "if"), and #5 for (morpho)syntax. Or, if you're like me and you usually teach language acquisition after teaching all the theoretical units, you could give the test all together as a simultaneous review of the concepts you've already talked about and an introduction to a discussion on how we learn a second language (and the impact our second language skills have on our ability to learn in a second language). Whether your students are future educators or not, they're all familiar with the dreaded ritual of test-taking. Maybe this activity will help them feel a little bit smarter about the process (or teach them something they didn't know!) while allowing you to make linguistic connections at the same time.