Five Kinds of Test Questions

Matching

Good for:

• Application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels

Types:

• Question/Right answer
• Incomplete statement
• Best answer
   

Advantages:

• Very effective
• Versatile at all levels
• Minimum of writing for student
• Guessing reduced
• Can cover broad range of content
   

Disadvantages:

• Difficult to construct good test items.
• Difficult to come up with plausible distractors/alternative responses.
   

Tips for Writing Good Multiple Choice items:

• Stem should present single, clearly formulated problem.
• Stem should be in simple, understood language; delete extraneous words.
• Avoid "all of the above"--can answer based on partial knowledge (if one is incorrect or two are correct, but unsure of the third...).
• Avoid "none of the above."
• Make all distractors plausible/homoegenous.
• Don't overlap response alternatives (decreases discrimination between students who know the material and those who don't).
• Don't use double negatives.
• Present alternatives in logical or numerical order.
• Place correct answer at random (A answer is most often).
• Make each item independent of others on test.
• Way to judge a good stem: student's who know the content should be able to answer before reading the alternatives
• List alternatives on separate lines, indent, separate by blank line, use letters vs. numbers for alternative answers.
• Need more than 3 alternatives, 4 is best.

True/False

Good for:

• Knowledge level content
• Evaluating student understanding of popular misconceptions
• Concepts with two logical responses
   

Advantages:

• Can test large amounts of content
• Students can answer 3-4 questions per minute
   

Disadvantages:

• They are easy
• It is difficult to discriminate between students that know the material and students who don't
• Students have a 50-50 chance of getting the right answer by guessing
• Need a large number of items for high reliability
   

Tips for Writing Good True/False items:

• Avoid double negatives.
• Avoid long/complex sentences.
• Use specific determinants with caution: never, only, all, none, always, could, might, can, may, sometimes, generally, some, few.
• Use only one central idea in each item.
• Don't emphasize the trivial.
• Use exact quantitative language
• Don't lift items straight from the book.
• Make more false than true (60/40). (Students are more likely to answer true.)

Completion

Good for:

• Knowledge level
• Some comprehension level, if appropriately constructed

Types:

• Terms with definitions
• Phrases with other phrases
• Causes with effects
• Parts with larger units
• Problems with solutions

Advantages:

• Maximum coverage at knowledge level in a minimum amount of space/preptime
• Valuable in content areas that have a lot of facts

Disadvantages:

• Time consuming for students
• Not good for higher levels of learning

Tips for Writing Good Matching items:

• Need 15 items or less.
• Give good directions on basis for matching.
• Use items in response column more than once (reduces the effects of guessing).
• Use homogenous material in each exercise.
• Make all responses plausible.
• Put all items on a single page.
• Put response in some logical order (chronological, alphabetical, etc.).
• Responses should be short.

Multiple Choice

Good for:

• Application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels
   

Types:

• Question/Right answer
• Incomplete statement
• Best answer
   

Advantages:

• Very effective
• Versatile at all levels
• Minimum of writing for student
• Guessing reduced
• Can cover broad range of content
   

Disadvantages:

• Difficult to construct good test items.
• Difficult to come up with plausible distracters/alternative responses.
   

Tips for Writing Good Multiple Choice items:

• Stem should present single, clearly formulated problem.
• Stem should be in simple, understood language; delete extraneous words.
• Avoid "all of the above"--can answer based on partial knowledge (if one is incorrect or two are correct, but unsure of the third...).
• Avoid "none of the above."
• Make all distractors plausible/homoegenous.
• Don't overlap response alternatives (decreases discrimination between students who know the material and those who don't).
• Don't use double negatives.
• Present alternatives in logical or numerical order.
• Place correct answer at random (A answer is most often).
• Make each item independent of others on test.
• Way to judge a good stem: student's who know the content should be able to answer before reading the alternatives
• List alternatives on separate lines, indent, separate by blank line, use letters vs. numbers for alternative answers.
• Need more than 3 alternatives, 4 is best.
   

Short Answer

Good for:

• Application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels
   

Advantages:

• Easy to construct
• Good for "who," what," where," "when" content
• Minimizes guessing
• Encourages more intensive study-student must know the answer vs. recognizing the answer.
   

Disadvantages:

• May overemphasize memorization of facts
• Take care - questions may have more than one correct answer
• Scoring is laborious
   

Tips for Writing Good Short Answer Items:

• When using with definitions: supply term, not the definition-for a better judge of student knowledge.
• For numbers, indicate the degree of precision/units expected.
• Use direct questions, not an incomplete statement.
• If you do use incomplete statements, don't use more than 2 blanks within an item.
• Arrange blanks to make scoring easy.
• Try to phrase question so there is only one answer possible.