In the testing world, we would call Hannah a student with high ‘testwiseness’: someone who knows all the tricks to answering multiple-choice questions, among other things. Someone who knows the tricks about how testing is done; someone who has knowledge that has nothing to do with the test material itself.
You should always try to avoid this as a teacher. If students who don’t study can get just as high grades as students who do, then there is definitely something strange going on. You might be testing a skill rather than the test material. Test experts are trained to avoid this as much as possible when they create questions. We discuss the most common pitfalls below.
1. Everyone knows that, right?
Perhaps the most important point is that test questions should only be answered properly with knowledge of the material or what the question specifically refers to (in the case of a reading or listening texts, for example). Some students might know the right answers immediately due to prior knowledge or, inversely, be able to eliminate wrong answers straight away: “Everyone knows the earth is round!” Pay close attention to this as a teacher! One way to avoid this pitfall in reading and listening texts is to ask for facts - “What shape is the earth?” - but by referring specifically to the text: “What does the speaker in this piece say about the shape of the earth?”
2. From A to B (logically)
Smart students know that it is highly unlikely that if ‘A’ has been the answer four times in a row that it will be the answer again the fifth time. And if they’re not sure? Then they will take a gamble on ‘B’ because people prefer to put things in the middle. By doing this, observant students do full analyses and guess answers correctly. Teachers are usually advised to put answers in alphabetical or chronological order to avoid this. This means teachers no longer have any influence on the location of correct answers, thus reducing the risk of creating patterns that students can notice.
3. Too Long To Be Wrong
When creating multiple-choice questions, the right answer may still be noticeably longer than the distracting options. Why is this? Probably because the right answer is often slightly more nuanced than the distractors. As a teacher, you most likely don’t want distraction options to be accidentally interpreted as correct, so these are often more concise and less nuanced than the correct answers. This results in short sentences, while the correct answer contains more words that make it more nuanced. Smart students will notice this and think: ‘this answer is too long to be wrong.’ You can read how to avoid this as a teacher in the next section.
4. Never say never
How do you quickly see which answers are nuanced and which aren’t? Pay close attention to the word choice in answers. Words like ‘never’, ‘always’, ‘everyone’, ‘nobody’ are general terms that apply so completely it is highly likely that they will be false. Of course, this does not apply to all types of assessments, but we largely prefer to avoid these kinds of words in answers. Avoiding these words also provides a way to make the distracting options more nuanced and longer. Look for synonyms that mean basically the same thing but come across as a little less stilted, such as ‘almost never’, ‘most of the time’, ‘the vast majority’ and ‘none of the people’.
5. “Read on for the correct answer”
It is often forgotten but answers to certain questions can sometimes be found in other questions in the same test. There is dependency between questions in these instances. Observant students will definitely notice this so these are effectively free points. As such, you should be careful not to accidentally give the answers to questions away somewhere further on in the test. This can be as simple as adjusting the instructions.
Other than these five points, there are lots of other things to think about when creating a good multiple-choice assessment, but if you apply these five tips, Hannah might actually study the test material beforehand if she wants to pass. Would you like to talk through assessments? You’re more than welcome to drop by! (A. correct B. incorrect).
