It’s much longer than the two distractors
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 5:10 am
You might have noticed that the key stands out for a bunch of reasons like:
It’s the only option that contains the phone numbers romania word “roar”, which also features in the question.
It’s more complex than the distractors, with adjectives “avian” and “aquatic” applied to the subject “predators”.
To fix the question you can change distractors b) and c) to something like this:
Why do Snafflegooks roar at dawn? Choose the correct answer. A) Their roar scares avian and aquatic predators. B) Their roar awakens the alpha and beta pack. C) Their roar attracts healthy and fertile mates.
Now everything is nice and consistent with nothing jumping out giving clues away to the key!
Mistake 2: Using too many options
Did you notice anything else unusual about the Snaflegooks example question above? Perhaps you were wondering why there were only 3 options?
Ever since that first multiple-choice exam in school, we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that multiple-choice questions should have 4 options (1 key and 3 distractors) and that’s carried over into how many people approach eLearning assessments. However, there’s a mountain of research that indicates that questions with just 3 options (1 key and 2 distractors) perform just as well (or better!) than questions with 4 options.
It’s the only option that contains the phone numbers romania word “roar”, which also features in the question.
It’s more complex than the distractors, with adjectives “avian” and “aquatic” applied to the subject “predators”.
To fix the question you can change distractors b) and c) to something like this:
Why do Snafflegooks roar at dawn? Choose the correct answer. A) Their roar scares avian and aquatic predators. B) Their roar awakens the alpha and beta pack. C) Their roar attracts healthy and fertile mates.
Now everything is nice and consistent with nothing jumping out giving clues away to the key!
Mistake 2: Using too many options
Did you notice anything else unusual about the Snaflegooks example question above? Perhaps you were wondering why there were only 3 options?
Ever since that first multiple-choice exam in school, we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that multiple-choice questions should have 4 options (1 key and 3 distractors) and that’s carried over into how many people approach eLearning assessments. However, there’s a mountain of research that indicates that questions with just 3 options (1 key and 2 distractors) perform just as well (or better!) than questions with 4 options.