The Anatomy of an MCQ: How you should tackle them
Ever been bugged by an MCQ which made you swear there were two correct options (knowing perfectly well it cannot be)? If you have been reading our series on MCQs, you will know by now the nitty-gritty of a GAMSAT MCQ. But how do you deal with answering it? Here is some essential know how:
Know what skills they are testing. A medical college entrance exam like GAMSAT designs MCQs to test your analytical skills rather than mere ‘knowledge chunks’. GAMSAT MCQs rarely seek to know how much you have learnt in class. While solving GAMSAT question papers, if you find yourself cursing the examiner for giving two correct options, your knowledge is probably not fine-grained enough.
Never ‘question spot’ while preparing for GAMSAT. MCQs can touch upon a plethora of topics so just studying mitosis because you find it easy and leaving out meiosis because it never comes (and praying that it never does) can prove to be disastrous. The GAMSAT questions are framed to test how well you know, what you know. The operation theatre is no place for little learners.
The cliché: READ CAREFULLY. You must have been told umpteen times about how to read every single word of the paper well. Well, you will be surprised how examiners use certain words to test your understanding of the question. Be careful to read a question and understand it well enough before you move onto answering the MCQs:
- Beware of double negatives like ‘not uncommon’ (it simply means ‘often’).
- Look out for the word ‘typical’ (meaning ‘usually’). You may find a choice that is correct but ‘rare’, not ‘typical’. Eliminate it.
- The words ‘infer’ and ‘imply’ are not the same. To ‘imply’ is to suggest, whereas inferring something is to derive or work out a problem.
- An ‘opinion’ is a “view held as probable” (according to OED). Do not mix it with a fact.
- A most common folly…the words ‘not’ and ‘except’ tell you what you should NOT choose as the answer. You may be asked to mark out the wrong one from a list of right answers.
- In the science section MCQs, sentences with words like ‘always’, ‘never’ are less likely to be true. (Medicine has few absolute truths)
- In a passage based MCQ, you may have to answer something related to a writer’s assumption. You may have read between the lines to understand the ‘assumption’. This ‘assumption’ may not be explicitly proved in the text.
Can I guess? Well, that is a million dollar question among students. With no negative marking involved, the ‘lucky monkeys’ would expect to have a field day while sitting for an exam like GAMSAT. But that is so far from true. GAMSAT MCQs test application rather than just empty theories. This leaves very little room for guesswork. But do not leave any blanks. Eliminate the easy choices and choose from what seem to be right. If it was a close guess…chances are you scored a point!
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