Essay VS Multiple choice Exams

Back in the Navy we took essay exams, a lot of essay exams. Essay exams for qualification, inspections, re-qualification and so on. The current industry opinion (formed by the NRC) is that grading an essay question is too subjective and could lead to a student without an adequate knowledge level passing a license test, hence, multiple choice questions. There are entire regulations on how to write the question and distracters. The strange thing is that our instructors routinely advise us to get a real feel for the material and not worry about the test, but in reality the questions are so convoluted that the only real way to assess knowledge is to do practice questions as a test. The fact is that in order to get questions that actually test knowledge, they are complicated. The handy thing is that the generic fundamentals exams given this century and a sample exam bank are online at nrc.gov. So, here is a sample question, all you nukes see what you think….

TOPIC: 192006
KNOWLEDGE: K1.06 [3.2/3.4]
QID: P259
A nuclear reactor has been operating at 50% power for one week when power is quickly ramped (over 4 hours) to 100%. How will the core xenon-135 concentration respond?
A. Decrease initially, then build to a new equilibrium concentration in 8 to 10 hours
B. Increase steadily to a new equilibrium concentration in 20 to 30 hours
C. Decrease initially, then build to a new equilibrium concentration in 40 to 50 hours
D. Increase steadily to a new equilibrium concentration in 70 to 80 hours


Not that tough, if you’ve seen the material and the question at least 5 times.

Now, not having realized this, being a tad bit overconfident when it comes to classroom training and as a Naval Nuclear instructor, judgmental of the materials, instructors and content I failed to adequately prepare for the first quiz in Reactor Theory almost tanked it. Not that I couldn’t have passed a good old fashioned essay test like in the Navy, but multiple choice can be tricky. In addition we have some new concepts here that if one is not fully versed in can be even more tricky. So in an effort to not repeat that performance, I delved into the books and the exam bank and scored better on Friday. So today and tomorrow, we are studying and going over the exam banks. Not much more exciting but I will finish my rant on the course in general and get it posted today.