WHILE answers reveal the level of candidates, the examination questions themselves can reveal the aptitude of examiners who set them.

Pakistan's education system has been a subject of extensive debates over the years in various quarters concerned. And while the curricula set for schools and colleges face different sorts of criticism from experts, the way of assessing a learner's academic capability has also been under the scanner.

The purpose of any academic examination should not be to know how much the student has learned, but to figure out how much he has understood. The type of questions set can fulfil this purpose to a great extent.

Subjective questions are valuable in an examination. Prudent candidates will write to-the-point answers as compared to the long 'tales' written by aspirants who remain lacking in grasping what the question actually demands.

It must be realised that subjective questions only help one accomplish this purpose if they are based on checking the understanding of the subject, not just knowledge.

If the same type of questions is set year in and year out, the whole point of checking the understanding of students goes in vain as even weaker candidates can get away with jotting down rote-learned answers.

Most students are happy to see a multiple-choice-question paper as they can always resort to guesswork, until and unless there is a penalty for incorrect answers.

What some examiners fully appreciate is that cleverly-worded multiple-choice-question papers can test multiple skills of students. It depends on how you ask the question and what choices you present to the candidate.

While the above-mentioned deduction can vary a bit for different subjects and academic levels, an examiner must keep the multiple-choice and subjective questions' combination in mind while setting up a question paper, as it is a test of his skills as well.

For a country like Pakistan where awareness about the purpose of gaining and imparting education is not that common, it is the duty of teachers, administrations, education boards and the ministry concerned to make sure question-papers are set with an appropriate blend of objective and subjective questions. After all, it is a matter of our future.

MOHAMMAD AZEEM
Karachi