Writing exam questions well – Part 1 of 3

Very often, an organization wants to test the effectiveness of their training by administering some type of test at the end of the training. Unfortunately, most trainers are not trained in writing test questions. It is much more than just writing 20 questions about the content. You can skew test results (and therefore get inaccurate feedback about training effectiveness) if test questions aren’t designed correctly.

In this first of three articles on designing good test questions, we’ll take a look at multiple choice questions and how best to design them.

Usually, when someone is not good at writing multiple choice questions, the correct answer will always be the longest; try to be aware of this and keep your answers to the same length.

It is MUCH easier to provide 3 alternatives than 4. Keep it simple. Your responses must include one correct answer and one incorrect but plausible answer.

One of the ways to ensure that you have plausible, but incorrect, answers is to make sure that each of your choices is logically consistent.

Check all answers that are primary colors:

Good

Red

Blue

White

orange

Mistaken

Red

Blue

White

ponies

Your plausible-but-wrong answers don’t have to be terribly difficult; keep in mind that you are evaluating people who have new knowledge and limited skills/experience. stump of the unqualified person. Similarly, the correct answer should not jump off the list.

If your answer begins with a vowel, the question above must end with “a(n)”; if it ends with year – which is grammatically correct – the question itself automatically causes the student to choose the answer that begins with the vowel.

Example: Example: The Interstate is also known as:

Highway

Road

Path

Do you see/hear how the question ends with year forces you to choose Expressway?

All options must begin with similar phrases or sentence structures.

For example:

Good

The time to cross the street is:

A. When the light turns green

B. After looking both ways

C. If the way is clear

Mistaken

The best time for fly fishing is:

One morning

B. Afternoon

C. from April to May; after the ice pack has melted

Careful with All previous. If you are going to provide “all of the above” (or “none of the above”) as one of your choices, you must include it in ALL of Choices If you have 15 multiple-choice questions and only 1 or 2 have the “none of the above” option, that’s a clear sign that the correct answer is none of the above.

These guidelines for developing well-written multiple-choice test questions should help ensure that you can accurately gauge your student’s level of learning.