CLEP Forum - CLEP Study - CLEP Testing

GettinMyBA · #4 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snazzlefrag

Guessing on a 4-answer standardized exam gives you a 25% probability of guessing correctly. If you guess on 20 questions, you are statistically likely to get five of them correct. The odds are slightly less on a 5-answer exam, but still VERY MUCH in our favor.

One more point to add to Snazzlefrag's excellent answer... this is partially scientific and partially my personal observation:

When you cannot even narrow down at all, or if you are blindly guessing because time is about to run out on the test... when it's truly a guess, Rob mentioned that you will get the answer 25% of the time... true, but only if you guess all the same answer (Make ALL your guesses be A, or make ALL your guesses B, etc.). A mathemetician taught me that... he said that you don't get your full 25% chance unless you make all the answers the same (maybe someone who did well in statistics can tell us why????). Ok, so that's the technical... now here's my personal observation:

I did this experiment on three DSST exams: Every answer that I was positive of had the question number and the answer scribbled down on a piece of paper. After the test, I checked to see if there were any patterns.... for example: What letter has the greatest percentage of representation? Very interesting: On all three exams where I did the experiment, C was represented > 30% of the time in the questions that I was positive I had the correct answer! No other letter came anywhere close (percentages in the low 20's). From that point on, if I have to guess.... it's 'C'.

Hope this helps!