The Ministry of Education (MoE) regularly gives students multiple choice tests in order to compare student and school performance, to check teachers are teaching the correct material, and to award medals and honors. Regardless of how one feels about the efficacy of standardized tests as a tool for assessing performance and educational outcomes, it is difficult to defend the practice of giving students tests riddled with mistakes and testing knowledge outside the prescribed curriculum, yet this routinely happens.
English exams from the MoE are distinguished by their mistakes, multiple right answers, lack of right answers, questions on non-English language based knowledge (e.g. How many legs does a butterfly have?) and inclusion of vocabulary or grammar inappropriate for the testing level. After every official MoE test my students come to me all worked up because they didn’t understand many of the questions. They are justified in their worries because often the material in the tests is from a higher level of the curriculum than they are studying or is nowhere in the 7 years of English curriculum at all. When a 9th grade student who is just starting to learn about irregular verbs (eat-ate, run-ran; etc) takes a test on English idioms not covered in the coursework such as “my father is a big cheese at work,” what chance of success does she have?
To add to the frustration, even when students are given questions on material they have studied in class, it may be wrong or misleading. The best example is when there are two or more correct answers but only one is considered correct by the official graders. The title of this post is an example of this type of question, and it is from an actual test. I can honestly say that even as a native speaker of English, I probably could not get one-hundred percent on the MoE tests.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The MoE has resources at its disposal if it seeks out assistance. Aside from all the native English speakers teaching at private schools and educational organizations in Ulaanbaatar, there are over 100 Peace Corps volunteers working in schools across the country who are potential contributors to improved testing materials. The best service any native English speaking educator can provide is proofreading and assessing the grading criteria for the tests–tasks that are not difficult to coordinate with minimal administration. I live only about 30km (18mi) away from my province’s MoE educational center, but to my disappointment I haven’t yet been asked to help design or grade tests. If my students fail a high quality, well-designed test on knowledge I have covered with them, then I have failed them as a teacher. But if they fail a test filled with mistakes and impossible questions, then the system has failed them. The only thing my colleagues and I can do is try to sooth their bruised egos.
About the Author
Sarah (Sadie) Munson currently lives and works in Umnugobi Province as an English teacher. She holds a bachelors degree from the University of Montana and a Masters of Human Ecology from the University of Wisconsin. Her professional interests and experiences include primary and secondary education, child development and family education, and community development. She can be reached at sarahmunson@gmail.com.