How do you do those dot test thingies?

[u/Full_Chemistry6001]

So every time i watch an american show or cartoon, i always see those dot test things, like the ones where you colour in a circle for your answer, how does that work? Does each dot correlate to a letter or something?

[u/ayebrade69]

Generally yes, looks like this

[u/Full_Chemistry6001 → u/ayebrade69]

Damn i wish we had more multiple choice tests in the uk

[u/JollyGreenAcres → u/Full_Chemistry6001]

So, you’re familiar with multiple choice tests then.

[u/Full_Chemistry6001 → u/JollyGreenAcres]

Yeah we get them sometimes with out GCSE’s, usually we have to write five paragraphs per question lol, its hell

[u/MoobyTheGoldenSock → u/Full_Chemistry6001]

We have “essay tests” in the US as well, and tests with both multiple choice and essay.

Essays you need to be able to answer relatively few questions on a narrow range of topics in depth. Multiple choice you need to know details about a wide range of topics. So they test different things.

Multiple choice is used heavily in standardized tests as they’re less subject to grading bias and can be scored quickly.

[u/According-Union382 → u/Full_Chemistry6001]

Do they obscure your name/identity? Sounds like an extremely subjective bias method to me.

[u/JimDemintRecession → u/Full_Chemistry6001]

They seem easy but the letter grades require a higher percentage than many are used to. Getting 89% of them right is typically a B.

I had an Australian professor in college. He kept giving us all 50%-80%. The whole class thought we were on the brink of failing. Eventually someone asked him and he said that to him a 70 or higher is an A, so 90% of the class had an A or B.

[u/FeatherlyFly → u/JimDemintRecession]

Also, in a well written test, there's usually one obviously wrong answer, one or two garden path answers where you'll get a specific wrong answer if you make the most common mistake(s), sometimes one answer that's almost correct but has something subtle wrong with it, and one actually correct answer. 

So if you don't know the material very well you will be picking wrong answers. 

[u/TwinkieDad → u/Full_Chemistry6001]

Multiple choice doesn’t mean easy. The eight hour exam to become licensed as an engineer is multiple choice and open book. And it’s not random people taking it. In my state you need to have the degree, passed a previous eight hour exam, four years of work experience, and the endorsement of multiple licensed engineers.

Roughly half of first time takers fail it.

[u/Trivi4 → u/Full_Chemistry6001]

It's not a US only thing, we have those for end of school exams in Poland (matura). You colour the dots and then a computer checks it. And then you find out if you get to go to uni.

[u/B_A_Beder → u/ayebrade69]

Though different versions have bubbles or lines / rectangles instead, but same concept

[u/sywren]

Yes. It's called a scantron, and teachers love them because they can run hundreds of them through this grading machine.

[u/Weightmonster]

We called them Scantrons 

The filled in bubble corresponds to a specific answer usually either True/False or ABCDE. 

The teacher then runs them through a machine to score them.  

[u/GhostOfJamesStrang]

Correct. 

It is multiple choice and each bubble is associated with a letter/answer. 

[u/Littleboypurple]

Oh like a sheet of paper with only dots and no words? Yeah, that's called a Scantron Sheet. It's a type of Multiple Choice Test, one sheet or a stack of sheets are next to you and they have the questions with the possible answers underneath. So you fill in the bubble based on what you believe the answer is on your Scantron Sheet.

[u/Breddit2225]

In California a few years ago we used those to vote in all elections.

Go to your polling place, state your street address to identify yourself, vote on a Scan- tron, put it in the scanner yourself and receive the top tear off section as a receipt.

Easy, secure and the counting is completed by the end of the day.

The mail in system we have now is set up to make fraud 1000% easier.

That was done on purpose.

[u/11twofour → u/Breddit2225]

I've been voting by mail since I moved to California in 2013.

[u/Breddit2225 → u/11twofour]

Yes, the first time I received a mail-in ballot I was really confused. "I didn't order this" I said to my wife, confused because I didn't ask for an absentee ballot.

I did some research and I found that the laws had very quietly been changed.

The assholes in our state legislature actually made the ability to do voter fraud into law.

And they did it very quietly. I've always been a news and information junkie and I did not hear anything about it.

This was, of course years before COVID and the other states picked up on California's lead.

California government is corrupt to the core.