Three usage questions

[eeshu]

I had a test today. Three of the test questions are especially difficult since I find different "correct" answers to each of them. I'd like to know a native speaker's opinion if someone can help.
1. The election campaign was _________ by the issue of unemployment.
A. nominated B. dominated C. directed D. derailed (B or D?)
2. People often think that Americans are more informal while Europeans are more conservative, yet people of all types live on ________ of the Atlantic.
A. both sides B. all sides C. each side D. either side (A or D?)
3. The _______ team comprises senior managers and staff drawn from areas as diverse as law, finance, marketing and entertainment.
A. innovation B. innovative C. innovating D. innovated (A or B?)
If there are indeed more than one possible answers, tell me which is the best one. Thanks.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I had a test today. Three of the test questions are especially difficult since I find different "correct" answers to each of them. I'd like to know a native speaker's opinion if someone can help.
1. The election campaign was _________ by the issue of unemployment.
A. nominated B. dominated C. directed D. derailed (B or D?)

Both your choices make sense. I would chose B, because issues commonly dominate election season.

2. People often think that Americans are more informal while Europeans are more conservative, yet people of all types live on ________ of the Atlantic.
A. both sides B. all sides C. each side D. either side (A or D?)

Native speakers are as likely as others to get this one wrong. The strongest choice is A. To understand why, think about the definition of both.

3. The _______ team comprises senior managers and staff drawn from areas as diverse as law, finance, marketing and entertainment.
A. innovation B. innovative C. innovating D. innovated (A or B?)

I like B best because team is a noun and innovative is an adjective. The simplest solution is adjective noun: innovative team.

If there is indeed more than one possible answer, tell me which is the best one.

They all had more than one answer that would have worked. In all three, you were on the right track.

Thanks.

You're welcome!

 

[eeshu]

You're welcome!

Thank you, but can you explain a bit more about question 2?

My Longman dictionary says that "either side/end/hand etc" means the same as "both sides, ends, hands etc". It also provides the following examples, which appear to be of the same type as the test question:

• He sat in the back of the car with a policeman on either side.
• There are shops at either end of the street.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary also states that either can mean both "one and the other of two" and "one or the other of two". Isn't the former sense the same as "both"?

 

[jutfrank]

1 is C
2 is A (The idea is to stress the idea both sides. D doesn't do that.
3 is B (This isn't an 'innovation team'—the context says that the team members don't work together on the same tasks.

These multiple choice questions have only one answer.

 

[5jj]

These multiple choice questions have only one answer.

They should have only one. They often don't, except in the mind of the person who composed the question.

1. The election campaign was _________ by the issue of unemployment.
A. nominated B. dominated C. directed D. derailed

I would accept either B or D

2. People often think that Americans are more informal while Europeans are more conservative, yet people of all types live on ________ of the Atlantic.
A. both sides B. all sides C. each side D. either side (A or D?)

I would accept either A or D.

3. The _______ team comprises senior managers and staff drawn from areas as diverse as law, finance, marketing and entertainment.
A. innovation B. innovative C. innovating D. innovated (A or B?)

I'd choose A. If I were in a benign mood, I'd accept B.​

​

 

[jutfrank]

They should have only one. They often don't, except in the mind of the person who composed the question.

We've gone over this before and I fear we'll be disagreeing on this for some time to come as to what 'correct answer' means. From my perspective, the 'correct' answer is the one that is going to get you the point. Whether the question is a valid test is another matter. The whole idea of question 1 was to provide a context where dominated can be selected as the correct choice. Many test setters of this kind of multi-choice question try to get around the problem by instructing something along the lines of 'Choose the best answer'. This is why I like to ask posters to copy in the instructions along with the question.

Why would you choose A for question 3, 5jj? (I'm starting to change my mind about that one.)

 

[5jj]

The whole idea of question 1 was to provide a context where dominated can be selected as the correct choice

The writer failed if that was their intention. In the limited context of the one sentence provided, derailed is a possible answer. No learner should be told that their correct answer is incorrect just because it's not the one the writer of the question wanted. Substituting best for correct doesn't help. That involves a subjective choice.

Why would you choose A for question 3, 5jj? (I'm starting to change my mind about that one.)

3. The _______ team comprises senior managers and staff drawn from areas as diverse as law, finance, marketing and entertainment.
A. innovation B. innovative C. innovating D. innovated

It came to me as the natural choice. I see innovation as a noun modifier. I read this as being about a team that had been set up to discuss innovation in the company.
I don't agree that "the context says that the team members don't work together on the same tasks". The very limited context, one sentence, simply tells us that the members come fore different areas.

 

[Skrej]

Context is the only way to definitively say whether B or D works best for #1, which we're missing as a stand-alone question.

If the intent is to say that the issue of unemployment was the single biggest discussion factor in the election, then B. If the intent is to say the unemployment issue was an issue that unexpectedly detracted from whatever the initial focus of the campaign was, then D. If the economy suddenly tanked or something, then I suppose unemployment could be a surprise issue, but typically it would already be a known point at the start of the election cycle. That's why I'd be more inclined to go with B over D, sans additional context.

With #3, I see A as the name of the team, not a description of their ability (B), which is why A is my preference. The team's job is to focus on innovation for the company.

Our college has a number of such self-styled "movers teams" (the idea being that they move us forward in their respective areas): an inclusivity team, a social media/online team, an outreach team, a safety and security team and some others I forget. None of them necessarily reflect the abilities of the team members on them, just what their mandate is about. For example, the safety and security team just poses ideas related to such; they're not actually members of the school's security staff.

 

[eeshu]

2 is A (The idea is to stress the idea both sides. D doesn't do that.

I understand that "both" refers to two of the things being identified together and that "either" often implies a choice between two items. However, a couple of dictionaries (Merriam-Webster's, Longman, American Heritage, etc.) all indicate that "either" in that use often goes together with "or", if not, it can mean "one and the other", as evidenced in the following examples:

• Flowers bloomed on either side [=on both sides] of the walk. (Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
• The road was straight, with fields on either side. (Oxford Dictionary of English)
• There are shops at either end of the street. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)
• He had a tool in either hand. (Webster 's New World College Dictionary)

By the way, I don't quite agree with you on your philosophy that multiple choice questions necessarily have only one answer. If one answer sounds perfectly natural in most circumstances, why should it be considered inferior only because another answer seems to be more preferable? This line of thinking is especially tricky to ESL learners, as this skewed view does not cover natural language data.

 

[Rover_KE]

In future, eeshu, ask only one question per thread, please.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Thank you, but can you explain a bit more about question 2?

My Longman dictionary says that "either side/end/hand etc" means the same as "both sides, ends, hands etc". It also provides the following examples, which appear to be of the same type as the test question:

• He sat in the back of the car with a policeman on either side.
• There are shops at either end of the street.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary also states that either can mean both "one and the other of two" and "one or the other of two". Isn't the former sense the same as "both"?

Again, there's not a right answer, just a strongest answer (or, as Jut says, the answers that will get you the points). I like both sides beause it's more concise and less ambiguous than either side. We all seem to agree on that one.

But as you can see, even educated life-long English speakers don't always agree on what's strongest.

 

[jutfrank]

The writer failed if that was their intention. In the limited context of the one sentence provided, derailed is a possible answer. No learner should be told that their correct answer is incorrect just because it's not the one the writer of the question wanted. Substituting best for correct doesn't help. That involves a subjective choice.

I disagree with this. I think it just about works.

I see innovation as a noun modifier. I read this as being about a team that had been set up to discuss innovation in the company.
I don't agree that "the context says that the team members don't work together on the same tasks". The very limited context, one sentence, simply tells us that the members come fore different areas.

Yes, I now agree with you that innovation is a better answer.

 

[jutfrank]

If the economy suddenly tanked or something, then I suppose unemployment could be a surprise issue, but typically it would already be a known point at the start of the election cycle. That's why I'd be more inclined to go with B over D, sans additional context.

Yes. I'm very confident that the test writer chose the issue of unemployment in this context precisely because it is an issue that would typically dominate election campaigns. For me, this association means it just about passes as a valid question, but perhaps I'm being too generous. If a candidate chose derailed over dominated I'd wonder why he didn't choose the more obvious answer.

 

[Glizdka]

Not a teacher
------

Running the risk of making this thread an excrementstorm, I'd just like to say that if I were your teacher, I'd probably not use this test because more than one option is valid, and if the circumstances were such that I had to use this exact test because my superiors made me do it, I'd accept all valid answers and not punish my students by giving them a lower score for not choosing the answer the designer of the test deemed "correct", and if I had to mark my students as per the answer key provided, I'd probably not work much longer as a teacher for the employer.

When more than one option given is valid, all the valid options should gain a student a point. Otherwise, it's a badly designed test.

 

[5jj]

I disagree with this. I think it just about works. [...]

Yes, I now agree with you that innovation is a better answer.

I think these comments make my point better than anything I could have said.

If two native speakers of English, both very experienced teachers, teacher trainers and examiners can't always agree on the correct (or best or most natural) answer, then how dare we penalise a learner who selects an answer that is possible but not the one the test-setter had in mind?

 

[probus]

All of the possible correct answers are not necessarily known to the person who wrote the question. I was once a member of a team of about 25 people marking about 2,000 examination papers. We were well into it when we discovered that one student had come up with a valid point nobody had previously thought of. We had to stop and go back and reread the hundreds of answers we had already marked.