ABHP questions

["Les Slaback, Health Physics" <SLABACK@micf.nist.gov>]

Well, I guess I have to defend/interpret my wording.
'Neat twist' definition: Provides an opportunity to explore a fundamental
understanding of a principle in a manner that can be answered in a minute
or less.

Example: A nuclide emits 2 photons of energy 30 keV and 80 keV with each
decay.  If the HVL for X material is yy for 30 keV and zz for 80 keV, after
a thickness of 2 yy the effective HVL for this nuclide will be
 a. yy
 b. zz
 c. yy+zz
 d. 1/[1/yy  +  1/zz]
 e. some other attractive distractor

We are not talking rocket science here.  We want to explore fundamental
understanding of principles, including when to ignore negligible contributors
to a problem.
Neat practical questions are tough to come up with.
Personally, I wish ABHP questions had more distracting, useless information
so the candidate was challenged to select the appropriate information.
That is the real world.

Once you have been involved with the exam process, and see how difficult it
is to come up with 'good' questions, you tend to keep an eye out for new
fodder for the process.  A good question is one that....
  - the right answer is unambiguously right, with a supporting reference.
  - the distractors are clearly wrong, but just as important, will be
attractive to poor performers
  - the question is short, quick to read, easy to understand
  - the question tests information suitable for a person with minimal
qualifications to enter the exam, i.e., a B.A. with 2 yrs exp., etc.
etc.
There are 12 people on the Part I panel.  Any questions you can route to them
would be gratefully accepted.  Now is a good time to do it because they are
readying their bundle of draft question for distribution for review prior
to their fall meeting.
Did not start out intending this to be an ad.  Sorry.
But there is a widespread ignorance of the mechanics behind the scenes of
the exam prep process (less so for Part II since there are more people
involved).  This is best solved by volunteering (gee, am I repeating myself?,
hint, hint.)
One last disclaimer: since I drafted the above 'question' off the cuff, and
it has not gone thru the normal review process (which discards the vast
majority of draft question) I do not claim that it is not fundamentally
flawed in some way.

SLABACK@MICF.NIST.GOV
   ...a little risk, like a bit of spice, adds flavor to life