Need of critical thinking

The Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) has decided to use technology for marking examination papers, which is apparently a step forward, but it is more important to enhance the quality of the tests. I have a rather lengthy experience of teaching biology at intermediate and degree levels; therefore all subsequent comments are confined to Zoology and Botany papers only. The BIEK has increased the percentage of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) to 40. If the goal is to enhance quality of the examinations, mere increasing the number would not serve the purpose, and would end up being just a cosmetic measure.
Good quality MCQs are designed to test the learner’s abilities related to fact recall, concept, problem solving, and creative thinking. However, all such questions in past papers of the board have been based only on memory recall. This pattern rewards rote learners at the cost of conceptual learners.
In fact, it would now glorify the ignorant even more than was the case previously. This is the reason why many students who scored high marks in board examination could not even qualify the medical and dental college admission test (MDCAT) last year.
Now let us take a look at the quality of the short-answer questions (SAQs). Since 2017, two types of short questions are being asked; reasoning and non-reasoning. The reasoning questions are supposed to test the ability of the students to think logically and critically.
However, most past questions do not serve the purpose. Mostly, the examiner just adds word ‘why’ before a question and it becomes a ‘reasoning question’. To make the point clear, let us take a look at some of the actual questions. In 2021, one of the questions was: ‘Write two reasons which disturbs menstrual cycle’. The reasons are given in the book and any student, with or without the ability of critical thinking, can memorise the text and get full marks. In 2019, a question asked: ‘How does osmoregulation take place in trout fish?’ Where is the reasoning in this question? The answer is just a description of the process. There are scores of such questions that require only rote learning to answer and no other faculty of brain is involved.
Moreover, most of the questions are repeated year after year which makes it easier for those who go by the so-called ‘guess papers’ and selective studies. The authorities concerned should make arrangements for training the paper-setters so that they may set good-quality MCQs and SAQs.
This would improve quality of education, because only conceptual learners would be able to score highly. For this purpose, A-level examinations can be taken as a guide.
Prof M.A. Abbasi
Karachi