Multiple Choice Questions? A practical guide to writing them

People often assume that multiple choice questions are easy to write. Just ask a question and offer four possible answers. Make one of the answers correct. Repeat the process for as many questions as needed. Job done!

This book originated in my desire to assist teachers who are tasked with writing multiple choice questions for high stake assessments that contribute to a student’s exit grade. Sadly, in spite of the best intentions and efforts of skilled teachers, too many of the multiple choice questions that are used to make important decisions are not well written. The literature suggests that this is often due to the fact that many of the writers were not sufficiently trained for their task. The skills needed to be an excellent teacher, and those needed to write and review useful multiple choice questions, are very different. Poorly written multiple choice questions do have detrimental effects on examinees.

Writing multiple choice questions is one of the most difficult forms of writing you will ever attempt; it can also become one of the most satisfying. No matter how well versed people are in their field of knowledge, it usually takes many months of intensive, guided practice to develop the necessary mindset and skills to write useful multiple choice questions.

This booklet does not tell you everything that you need to know in order to write useful MC questions. It will, however, alert you to the mindset and processes that lead to MC questions that are better written and more thoroughly reviewed.