Off the Shelf and into the Trash Bin: Licensure Examination for Teachers Reviewer (MSA)
August 25, 2007
I should be cramming for tomorrow's board exam (L.E.T.) but instead I am blogging and for a good reason, I suppose. To cap off a week of "studying", I decided to answer the sample tests in the Licensure Examination for Teachers Reviewer, Vol. 1 by Merle S. Alferes, Ma. Gracia B. Nones,and Ma. Dolores Nones-Austria. The reviewer was published by MSA Math Tutoring Center. To my horror, the reviewer is laden with errors. No, not just the forgivable and forgettable typo errors that we come across with every now and then. I'm talking about gross errors here.
Exhibit A
This one is item 25 on page 5 in the Professional Education section, a fill-in-the-blank/multiple choice test item. If you look at the choices, there isn't any that upon substitution will give a grammatically sound sentence. Not only that, look closely at choice b) Motivates the lesson to interest the students. I didn't know lessons need to be motivated to make them interesting.
That's the grammatical part. Let us move on to the test item construction part. In the field of education, test construction is a major subject. Just how major the subject is? There are masteral and doctoral dissertations on the subject. When constructing an item such as this one, I have learned that you are not supposed to place the blank at the beginning of the sentence. It should be placed in the middle or at the end of the sentence.
Exhibit B
This one could be found on page 71 in the English Grammar section, Idiomatic Expressions test. "at a discount" is not an idiomatic expression. Consider the sentence: "Cleanliness is still at a discount in many parts of the country." I am flabbergasted. Will dirt be put on sale as well?
Exhibit C
Refer to page 72, Idiomatic Expressions test.
Aside from "at a discount", "punctuality" and "resolved" are considered idiomatic expressions by the authors. Perhaps, they are idiotic expressions of the authors but they are not idiomatic expressions.
These mistakes are not isolated cases I'm afraid; they are reverberated throughout the book. Miss Ilao, my professor in Measurement and Evaluation in Philippine Normal University will surely have a field day revising the book. I am recommending the book to anyone aspiring to be a proofreader or an editor. You'll get comprehensive practice.
