Why have I not thought of this before?
One way to prevent cheating on multiple choice tests is to create multiple versions of the test and tell the students, so they know if the kid next to them is marking “C” three times in a row, it doesn’t mean they should also mark C because that kid might have different questions. This is effective, though it’s a pain to move questions and answers around and keep track of different answer keys for multiple test versions. Today’s English 3 test was over poetry, points of view, and irony, and due to a fussy new copier I ran out of time to run both versions, so I just marked “A” or “B” in sharpie at the top of each test and told the students to write that in the form on their Scantron sheet…and they dutifully did, and there was no cheating because they thought the guy next to them had a different test…but it’s all really the same test! I tricked them! Mwahaha…thank goodness it’s finally Friday.
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