May 10, 2026 by Doug McCurry
Using MCQ and SAQ for teaching and learning in VCE English - 1
I have discussed in an earlier blog the workload benefits for English teachers of using Multiple choice (MCQ) and short answer questions (SAQ), particularly for formative assessment. Having had a good deal of experience writing MCQ and SAQ I have become convinced of the potential heuristic value of good closed and semi-closed test items. I have argued in a previous blog that preparing for the GAT can be a valuable educational opportunity for students and teachers. This goes against the claim (implied by the VCAA) that you do not have to prepare for tests like the GAT, and that students (and teachers?) can just let it happen.
As I described in a previous blog, I am currently working on the computer scoring of MCQ and SAQ with the hope of relieving to some extent the marking workload for English teachers. In this blog I want to discuss the test I am using in the trial in term of its potential for teaching and learning reading skills and the Section C skills of argument and language analysis.
Using the text of the Section C task of 2025 as the basis for a test of reading and interpretation skills is not ideal because the text is intended to be very generally accessible for students in terms of reading load. One wouldn’t choose such a straight forward text to test reading and interpretation for the GAT. Most GAT texts (especially in Part B) will be significantly more difficult than the texts used in Section C. On the other hand, there is value in using MCQ and SAQ on the exam text because the Section C task is concerned with testing both reading comprehension and interpretation as well as testing the knowledge and understandings of argument and language analysis. I have elsewhere tested the Section C knowledge and skills (particularly ‘metalanguage’) without basing the questions on a reading passage.
The 12 MCQ and the 10 SAQ of the trial test are below. I will make some comments on what is shown in and can be learned from those test items.
When they do the test online students get an instant score for the MCQ, and they can review an explanation for the MCQ answers and a model answer for the SAQ. These explanations and model answers offer a learning opportunity for students (why did I get that wrong?) and a teaching opportunity. (Look at what this question and answer shows about understanding and interpreting the text.) We are all always trying to learn how to read better.
As I have implied above, I do not offer these questions as model examples of test writing.
A note on the provenance of the questions and answers
After a good deal of experience, it is clear to me that ChatGPT cannot or does not write good test questions. Most ChatGPT test questions are factual or literal (they can be answered with quotations from the text) or rudimentary questions involving the location of information. I usually don’t bother seeing what question the bot would offers when writing MCQ.
For this exercise I got ChatGPT to write 10 MCQ and 10 SAQ with answers. MCQ 9 in the test below is a literal question I adapted from a ChatGPT questions. (It is the weakest in the set.) I wrote all the other questions and judged 19 of the ChatGPT questions to be inferior and unacceptable.
While ChatGPT cannot write good questions it can, interestingly, write good answers to good inferential and interpretative questions. I asked the bot to answer my MCQ and explain the answers and it got 9 of 12 correct with good explanations. I rewrote two of the questions it got wrong to better focus them, and challenged the bot’s reading of the third. It acquiesced to my argument, but it may have done so from politeness. I stuck with my key for the item 10 because I think it correct.
In any case getting 9 of 12 correct was a strong performance from the bot. The answers of ChatGPT to the SAQ were good and I have simply used them with a little editing and a couple of amendments. The bot can’t write questions well, but it can answer them well. This suggests that ChatGPT could save teachers time and effort by answering the question that teachers pose. In my experience the bot gives precise and concise answers to SAQ and good answers and explanations to MCQ.
The following table shows that most of the questions I have written (as noted in column 1) are conceptual and or interpretive rather than factual or literal.
These MCQ involve the concepts of factual content, descriptive language, the credibility or authority of a writer, emotive language, overtones or suggestions of words in context, irony, persuasive appeals, attitude and tone, and consistent or contradictory statements. There is clearly a good deal of conceptual teaching that can be done with these items.
As shown in the third column of the following table, the SAQ involve a preponderance of interpretation in specific and global terms for both language and images. While some of the same concepts are tested as in the MCQ (purpose, implication, emotion and factual emphasis, opposing views, authorial presence and general impression), the SAQ are more interpretive and less conceptually focussed than the MCQ, as one would expect. Question 15 is the only comprehension question, and even that is a summarising rather than a literal answer.
Again, I would claim that there is a good deal to teach and to learn about in these questions.
There are concepts and skills in this test that students can learn and that teachers can teach from the test items. The fact that the concepts and skills are focused in specific questions is an advantage because the test question acts as a definite kind of scaffolding for the learning process.
Next blog:
Using MCQ and SAQ for teaching and learning in VCE English - 2
Q and A for Section C of the 2025 English exam
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