Alternative Assessment: Responses to Commonly Asked Questions

Abstract

I was picking up my fourth-grade daughter after school one afternoon when, as she jumped into the car, she exclaimed, "Mom, I've never in my life had none of the above!" I thought for a moment and then realized what she was talking about – a multiple-choice test. Sure enough, as she continued to talk she expressed her frustration at a science test she had taken that afternoon. The teacher had decided to add the choice of "none of the above" to several of the questions, a choice my daughter had not understood. Never having seen it before on a test, she decided that it meant that she was not to circle any of the choices listed for the questions that offered "none of the above" as a response. Consequently, she failed the test.