A homework question in someone’s 11th grade statistics class

Many of his comments are correct - it is easier to disguise badly constructed essay exams than poorly constructed multiple choice exams, for example. The only place I would take issue with is his description of a good multiple choice question. My concern then is how such a good question is graded. Shouldn't there be a "More right" grade? If I need to follow 10 logical steps and I fail at step 7, isn't that better than failing at step 3? And if we are to grade along these lines, then creation of these questions becomes even more difficult. In the spirit of Meehl's writing, the energy required to do so seems so much greater than the energy required to write and grade good essays or open-ended problems, that I don't think the multiple choice exam passes muster. Along the lines Meehl suggests, I guess we should compare real world essay questions and real world multiple choice questions rather than the idealized form of either. I won't claim that multiple choice is generally inferior from that perspective - but real world multiple choice exams don't really test for the skills and talents that I am looking for in my courses.