Tech Writer's test

[David Blyth <dblyth -at- QUALCOMM -dot- COM>]

Hi All;

There's a chance that I may be asked to teach a Tech Writing class on
the JC level sometime in the next few months.  In the true spirit of
Tech Writing, I'm trying to write a test (heh, heh, heh).

Here are some of the ideas I had.  Any others?

  1) Number the questions ramdomly (or use "A,X D" for some, and
     "i, iv, CCXX" for others).  Ask the student to figure out how
     many questions there are and to come up with a consistent
     pattern.

  2) Ask the student to "find the four Tech Writing errors in this
     test".  Make damn sure to include only two - one of them being
     that the word "four" should be "two".

  3) Switch tests 2/3 of the way through the test period.  Grade both.

  4) Write at least one test question in a foreign language (or with
     very awful English).

  5) Ask students "what color is the other side of this piece of paper?"
     Give points to any student who actually flips the paper over to
     look (even if all the test papers are white on both sides).

  6) Leave one test question only partially written - then require
     the students to research what the test question _should_ be.
     (provide a means to do this).

  7) Write one test question in HTML and require that the response
     is in Eroff.

  8) Require students to carefully document how to make a photo copy
     on your machine.  Jam the machine before the test.

OK.  I'm fresh out of ideas here - but maybe someone else has some more....

Thanks!

David (The Man) Blyth
Technical Writer
QUALCOMM

Standard disclaimers apply.