English Language: Adjudicating two ambiguous multiple-choice items before printing
At a secondary school in Baghdad, the English exam committee for the sixth preparatory class met to finalise the mid-year paper. Two items in the draft were flagged. Item 7 reads: 'By the time we arrived at the hall, the film ___.' Options: (a) had started (b) started (c) has started (d) was starting. The key says (a), but a teacher argued that (b) is also acceptable because a past-time clause with 'by the time' can take the simple past in narrative sequence. Item 12 reads: 'The head teacher suggested ___ the meeting until Monday.' Options: (a) to postpone (b) postponing (c) that we postpone (d) us to postpone. The key says (b), but a colleague insists that (c) is equally standard. Forty-two students will sit the paper, the printing order is due tomorrow, and the committee has no time to consult the ministry. The head of department wants a written ruling on each item and a decision that can be defended to parents if results are challenged.
1. Rule on item 7 and item 12: which options are defensible, and what must the committee do before printing?
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Item 7 - defective as written. (a) had started is the taught target: the past perfect marks the earlier of two past events. But (b) started cannot be ruled out on grammar alone in narrative sequence, so a single key is not defensible. The fix is to rewrite, not to argue: 'By the time we arrived, the film ___ for twenty minutes.' with the key had been on. A duration phrase forces the perfect and only one option survives.
Item 12 - two correct keys. Suggest takes either a gerund (suggested postponing) or a that-clause with the present subjunctive or should (suggested that we postpone). Both (b) and (c) are standard English, so the item is measuring nothing. It must be rewritten, not re-keyed: replace (c) with that we postponed, which fails here, or restrict the stem to 'suggested ___ (gerund only)'.
Ruling: do not print either item in its current form; reserve 20 minutes for revision tonight.
2. Suppose the paper had already been printed unchanged and a student chose (b) in item 7. Should the mark be awarded? State the principle behind your decision.
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Yes - award the mark, and record it in the minutes.
The principle is that a fault in the item belongs to the examiner, not the candidate. A distractor is legitimate only if it is wrong for a reason the syllabus teaches and the candidate can name. If (b) is acceptable English in that context, the student has not made an error; the item has failed the one-defensible-answer rule.
Procedure:
- Re-key the item so both (a) and (b) score, and announce it in writing.
- Check whether (a) still discriminates between strong and weak candidates; if almost everyone chose (a), the item adds no information and its mark can be redistributed to all candidates instead.
- Do not cancel the item automatically - cancelling removes a valid test of the past perfect that (a) still carries.
- Log the incident for the item bank so the stem is rewritten next year.
3. Rewrite item 12 so that exactly one option is correct, and justify why each distractor fails.
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Revised item: 'The head teacher suggested ___ the meeting until Monday.' (a) to postpone (b) postponing (c) that we postponed (d) us to postpone
Justification:
- (a) to postpone: wrong - suggest is never followed by a to-infinitive.
- (b) postponing: correct - verb + gerund pattern.
- (c) that we postponed: wrong here - the that-clause after suggest takes the present subjunctive or should, not a past tense.
- (d) us to postpone: wrong - suggest does not take object + to-infinitive; that pattern belongs to advise, ask, tell.
Why this version is sound: every distractor fails for a nameable rule that appears in the syllabus, no two options are simultaneously acceptable, and the item still tests the same structure. Run a quick check with three colleagues before printing: if any of them hesitates on an option, the option is doing no work.