---
title: "Constructing Multiple-Choice Quizzes: A Few Extra Bits"
description: A short blog on how to design multiple-choice quizzes. Teaching and Learning. Retrieval. CPD.
---

[Douglas Wise English Teaching Resources](https://www.douglaswise.co.uk/blog)

# [Constructing Multiple-Choice Quizzes: A Few Extra Bits](https://www.douglaswise.co.uk/blog/constructing-multiple-choice-quizzes-extra-bits)

 Written by [Douglas Wise](https://www.douglaswise.co.uk/blog/author/wise) | 3 April, 2021

A couple of months ago, I wrote a short blog about how I think we can make quizzing a bit more worthwhile. You can read it by clicking [here](https://www.douglaswise.co.uk/making-quizzes-worthwhile/) . Since then, a few other bits have come to mind regarding the construction of multiple-choice quizzes that I thought might be helpful.

**Put the majority of information in the stem and not the responses.** This will reduce the number of ‘redundant’ words and help to focus student attention. Ideally, students should have a tentative idea of what the answer might be before reading the available options.

**Aim to make the form and structure of the responses consistent**.  Making one of the options longer or more technically complex than the others is likely to provide students with a clue that might enable them to select the correct answer without possessing the requisite knowledge.

**Aim to make the incorrect responses (i.e. ‘distractors’) seem plausible**.  Responses that are clearly incorrect won’t meaningfully test student knowledge.  Ideally, they should be sufficiently inaccurate to be considered *wrong*, but also reasonable enough to seem *right* so that effortful thinking is required to rule them out.

**Spread the correct answers equally across the response options**.  This will avoid creating a pattern that might help students to guess the answers.  Aim to use each response option as the correct answer (e.g. 1, 2, 3 and 4) roughly the same amount of times.

Thanks for reading –

Doug

 

[View full post](https://www.douglaswise.co.uk/blog/constructing-multiple-choice-quizzes-extra-bits)

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