First things first – Biology is an easy subject and it is usually difficult for a Bio teacher to set a difficult question. What makes Bio CET more easy is the fact that the correct answer is in front of the student! . But every year, I observe without fail, an overwhelming majority of students score less than expected marks inspite of cherishing that Bio paper was ‘lallo panju‘. Newspapers like to call the Biology paper as ‘Balm for harm done by a difficult physics’, and readers also like to believe it. But the fact is that real effectiveness of the ‘Balm’ is less than the perceived value! It looks great on a newspaper headline, but not on the marksheet!

Now, I am sharing with you some of my secrets that I personally use to fool my students. To start with, answer the below given MCQ:

In T.S., the spinal cord is ___ shaped.

a) K shaped             b) A shaped             c) H shaped             d) O shaped

The correct answer is d -  O shaped. Most of the students will jump to mark H shaped – which is wrong. H shaped is only the gray matter, the entire section is somewhat oval.

Now, read the below rules and see how I have applied them to the above question.

Rule 1: Not to ask any question which is covered by only few of the 10 sanctioned textbooks.

For ex: in the chapter of nervous system, it has been mentioned only in two textbooks(Nirmitee, Scholars) that medulla oblongata is also called as spinal bulb. It is very tempting to use this MCQ because most would not be knowing it but I prefer not to use it because it still gives an advantage to the students who have read those two textbooks.

Instead, I will trick students in such an area which is covered in all the 10 sanctioned textbooks. T.S. of spinal cord is covered in all the 10 books, and hence, I get to use my trick on all the students, and not on only those few who did not study Nirmitee textbook.

Rule 2: Use ‘familiarity’ and ‘association’

In all the 10 textbooks, it has been mentioned clearly that gray matter of spinal cords is H shaped. Students are so used to this sentence that in their minds, they have formed an association of words relating to spinal cord and H shape. By using familiar associations,  ensure that students do not get a second opportunity to think.

Instead of using this, had I put some difficult question, many students would have thought twice before marking the answer, and few of them would have got the correct answer in their second thought process. I have eliminated this by tricking the students to mark the answer quickly.

Rule 3: Allow students to develop overconfidence.

Overconfidence is the Grand Father of all tricks. Its easy to develop, hardly fails and often the students goes home with an euphoria that he will score 95 or 96 out of 100, only to find that he scored only 80 or 85.

As a paper-setter, I know that the preceding physics paper is always a nightmare for students.  It greatly impacts the student’s mindset negatively. In this negative atmosphere, I see an fantastic opportunity to play my trick. Purposely, the first 20 or 25 questions will be extremely easy so that students can ‘relax’. Typically, the student will have solved these 25 question within the first 5 minutes of the Biology paper. By this time, the student has suddenly experienced a relief from the stress created by the Physics paper. The student has come to a conclusion that he is good at  Biology than physics. This is only an manipulative illusion created by the paper-setter because he wants to trick the student.

Now that the student has started taking it easy, I will be putting my tricky questions in his way one by one. The sudden relief created by the first 25 easy questions masks the negative impact felt by the student when he is unable to solve “just 1 opr 2″ questions. Not to mention, if the question is something like I have asked above(shape of TS spinal cord), most of the students will not even realize that the trick has already been played!

Rule 4: In tricky questions, put the correct answer in option A or D, but not B or C

When not sure about the answer, students are more likely to mark B or C as the answer rather than A or D.