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CVu Journal Vol 13, #4 - Aug 2001 + Project Management
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Title: From the Coalface

Author: 

Date: 03 August 2001 13:15:46 +01:00 or Fri, 03 August 2001 13:15:46 +01:00

Summary: 

Multiple Choice Tests

Body: 

A friend of mine applied for an IT job at a large investment bank and was asked to take an online multiple-choice 30-minute assessment in Java programming before arrival. The security of the assessment could have been better - besides anything else, it seemed to rely on client-side timing - but I assume that this was not important. I am not in the practice of doing people's homework, but out of curiosity I did read the questions my friend sent to me, and here are a couple (slightly modified for protection):

  1. val is a static and private member of the class Sam. Which statement could be used to set val to 15 from anywhere in the program?

    1. val=15;

    2. Sam.val=15;

    3. setVal(15);

    4. Sam.setVal(15);

    5. None of the above.

    Firstly, if you assume that Sam has methods like setVal and getVal, that do nothing more than change val, then what is the point of making it private? Secondly, I hope that the assessors did not think the answer was D. What if more than one package has a class called Sam? Since there was no space on the form for justifying your answer (in fact I believe it was marked automatically), it is anybody's guess whether or not the examiners thought of that and whether the "correct" answer was D or E.

  2. Which of the following is most accurate? An abstract class:

    1. does not inherit methods,

    2. cannot be a derived class,

    3. contains at least one method that is declared as abstract,

    4. has no implementations for the methods it declares,

    5. cannot be instantiated.

    This is all very well, but what exactly do they mean by "contains" in answer C? If their definition of "contains" includes inherited methods then both C and E are true, otherwise it's just E. Obviously E is more likely to be the assessor's answer, but a student should not have to figure out what the examiner meant like this. Are they testing Java programming or the ability to do multiple-choice questions?

If you want accurate assessment then always allow students to justify their answers and don't mark them automatically. I wonder how many of these places are ACCU members (not many I'd imagine).

Notes: 

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