How to Design Multiple Choice Questions for Primary School

Imparting knowledge to your young students can be challenging at times. To determine if students are absorbing that knowledge, it is important to administer appropriate tests and quizzes. Multiple choice questions are a valuable question structure for primary school students when the proper guidelines are followed.

Instructions

1. Format questions as complete sentences, not as fill in the blanks, with a list of choices. Questions in a complete sentence format with answer choices flow more smoothly, while fill in the blank questions can create a break in thought for students.

2. Construct questions using simple language and familiar, grade-level vocabulary. Avoid extreme adverbs such as always, never or only.

3. Include distracters, or wrong answers to questions, that are non-deceptive. In other words, don't include any trick distracters. Additionally, only provide distracters that are similar to, or in the same family as, the correct answer. For example, if you are asking a question and its answer is a country, only include countries in your list of choices.

4. Ensure that all answer choices are approximately the same length. Often, those creating test questions make the correct answer the longest and thus, it's a give away to the student. Making all answer choices the same length will challenge your students.

5. Write questions that have only one correct answer.

References

• Testing BYU.edu: 14 Rules for Writing Multiple Choice Questions