Poorly-worded Quiz Question in Content Marketing Certification
In the section "Creating Quality Blog Content Your Audience Loves to Read and Share", the final quiz section has eight questions.
Question No. 5 reads as follows (capitalization is exactly as it appears, and is not my embellishment):
All of the following are areas to include CTAs on a blog post EXCEPT:
- At the top
- At the bottom
- Next to relevant content on the page
- A and B
- All of the above
Read the question again, especially the word that has been capitalized.
Remember this song from Sesame Street?
"One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?"
The word "EXCEPT" means that one of the choices is incorrect. That indicates that you are supposed to choose which of the five listed answers is wrong.
Is it just "A" by itself? "B" by itself? "C" by itself?
The fourth choice, as worded, means that both "A" and "B" are wrong, so that only "C" is where a CTA should be placed.
The final choice, "All of the above" conflicts with the wording. All of them are correct, EXCEPT that all of them are wrong?
(NOTE: It turns out that the correct answer for this question was the last one — "All of the above". So I guess adding the word "EXCEPT" made it a trick question.)
Why am I concerned about this, as these are just review questions and I am not being held accountable for them?
Because I looked at some online reviews of your certification programs, and one of the concerns I've seen raised is that people have found some questions vaguely or poorly written and open to interpretation.
I initially brushed off these reviews, but now that I ran into a question such as the one above, I'm worried about what I will find when I take the actual certification test.
