Tips for writing good multiple choice items: Avoid However, they can be marked very quickly. Creating these questions can be time consuming because it is often difficult to generate several plausible distractors. As a result, they are often used to test student’s knowledge of a broad range of content. Students can generally respond to these type of questions quite quickly. Typically, students select the correct answer by circling the associated number or letter, or filling in the associated circle on the machine-readable response sheet.Ī) Elements of the exam layout that distract attention from the questionsī) Incorrect but plausible choices used in multiple choice questionsĬ) Unnecessary clauses included in the stem of multiple choice questions Multiple choice questions are composed of one question (stem) with multiple possible answers (choices), including the correct answer and several incorrect answers (distractors). Remember that some exams can be conducted effectively in a secure online environment in a proctored computer lab or assigned as paper based or online “take home” exams. This tips sheet contains a brief description of seven types of examination questions, as well as tips for using each of them: 1) multiple choice, 2) true/false, 3) matching, 4) short answer, 5) essay, 6) oral, and 7) computational. Examinations are a very common assessment and evaluation tool in universities and there are many types of examination questions.