Multiple Choice Quizzes offer several attractive features to science teachers: they're easy to administer and easy to correct: indeed, in an online world, it only involves sharing a link to get started and downloading the results in a spreadsheet when they're done.
Maire Duffy's Padlet is a great resource of ready-to-go quizzes like that.
The only problem is that if you want a quiz on a new topic, it be a chore to set it up. And in particular, I have always found it hard work to come up with the required wrong answers: its not just picking random numbers that don't match the info in the question - there have to be some answers that might be attractive to an inattentive student, to make sure they're really thinking things through.
So I am indebted Rory Geoghegan for sharing this idea (and for many other things).
In his own words....
'I asked ChatGPT to generate multiple choice questions involving calculations on various topics - but the incorrect answers were often unrelated to the given data.
However, the following request yielded better results:
"Can you please give me 10 multiple choice calculation questions on mechanics, with five options for each question. Please place the correct answer as the first option in each case. The incorrect answers should be result of incorrect calculation; show how each incorrect answer was obtained. Please use carets for powers, instead of superscripts. Please use SI units."
I've copied in the the first few questions I got when I tried it: below.
They look like solid question to me, with appropriate incorrect answers too.
So now the tests that correct themselves can also set themselves! (Though it might still require a bit of copy and paste to get them into an online-form)
More resources collated on a padlet linked to here and at the top of the homepage:
Question 1: Kinetic Energy
A 5 kg object is moving with a velocity of 10 m/s. What is its kinetic energy?
A) 250 J
B) 200 J (calculated as 0.5 5 8^2)
C) 100 J (calculated as 0.5 5 4^2)
D) 500 J (calculated as 0.5 10 10)
E) 125 J (calculated as 0.5 5 5^2)
Question 2: Gravitational Potential Energy
What is the gravitational potential energy of a 10 kg mass at a height of 15 m? (g = 9.81 m/s^2)
A) 1471.5 J
B) 1000 J (calculated as 10 10 10)
C) 2000 J (calculated as 10 10 20)
D) 750 J (calculated as 10 5 15)
E) 981 J (calculated as 10 9.81 10)
Question 3: Force
What is the force exerted by an object with a mass of 20 kg accelerating at 3 m/s^2?
A) 60 N
B) 30 N (calculated as 20 1.5)
C) 40 N (calculated as 20 2)
D) 80 N (calculated as 20 4)
E) 20 N (calculated as 20 1)
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