I question how the question pool is so much worse of a learning tool
than say a book.

Here's something to try.


Let us take a website:


http://www.ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millen...scientist.html



This is IEEE's write-up on Reginald Fessenden.

Let's take a situation where there is a question on the first date of
transmitted sound.

Quoting from the page:

Professor Kintner, who was working for Fessenden at that time,
designed an interrupter to give 10,000 breaks a second, and this
interrupter was built by Brashear, an optician. The interrupter was
delivered in January or February 1900, but experiments were not
conducted until the fall of that year. To modulate his transmitter,
he inserted a carbon microphone directly in series with the antenna
lead. After many unsuccessful tries, transmission of speech over a
distance of 1.5 km was finally achieved on 23 December 1900, between
15-metre masts located at Cobb Island, Maryland.

A couple paragraphs later....

Fessenden's greatest radio communications successes happened in 1906.
On 10 January, two-way transatlantic telegraphic communication
was achieved -- another first – between Brant Rock, Massachusetts,
and Macrihanish, Scotland. James C. Armor, Fessenden's chief assistant,
was the operator at Macrihanish, and Fessenden himself was the operator
at Brant Rock.

End quote

There are some questions that may be easily taken from these paragraphs.

When was the date of the first successful voice transmission?

A. July 15, 1905

B. December 1, 1899

C. December 23, 1900

D. January 10, 1906

Some place you can look up the answer = C


What was the distance of the first transmission?

A. 1.5 Kilometers

B. 1.5 miles

C. Transatlantic

D. 5 meters

Some place you can look up the answer = A


Okay. So which is the superior method?


If I were to voice my preferences, I would just as soon read a nice
story about Mr. Fessenden than a dry question pool. But functionally the
two are identical.

Should the answers to the question pool be some deep hidden tome, not
accessible to the public? As much as the two methods are pretty much the
same, I would only agree with that if no one was allowed to study *any*
reference material *at all*. Reading the two paragraphs gives you the
*exact* same answers as looking at a question pool.

Finally, I deliberately included this particular material and this
specific question because of a current disagreement between to members
of the group.

Whereas probably most of us would answer question 1 with C, and
question 2 with A, there is at least one here that would answer the
questions with D and C.

What?! how can this be? First is interpretation. Regardless of the
reasons that some may have for a different answer, there has to be a
reference somewhere. And the nice thing about the question pool is that
you can see the answer that is wanted. Then the person taking the test
can decide whether they want to put in the desired answer, purposely
put in an answer that will be marked wrong, or argue with the test giver.

So NOT having a open question pool is going to cause trouble.

- Mike KB3EIA -