Guidelines for writing effective distractors for multiple-choice questions

   Guidelines for writing effective distractors for multiple-choice questions

                                Rajiv Jhangiani, Ph.D.
                            Kwantlen Polytechnic University

1. Write plausible distractors
       Each of the incorrect response options should be plausible, at least on the
          surface. Selecting the correct response should require a clear (and ideally
          deep) understanding of the material.

2. Keep the length of the response options similar
       The correct answer should not be the shortest or the longest response
         option.

3. Avoid overlapping response options
       The response options should be mutually exclusive. It should not be the
          case that if one of the distractors is true, another distractor must be true
          as well.

4. Avoid grammatical and spelling errors
       Carefully proof read your work and make the choices grammatically
          consistent with the stem.

5. Avoid using absolute terms such as “always,” “never,” “all,” or “none.”
       Students recognize that few things are universally true so response
          options that include such terms are easily rejected.

6. Avoid the “all of the above” response option
       Students only need to recognize two of the response options to get the
          answer correct.

7. Avoid the “none of the above” response option
       This option does not test whether the student knows the correct answer,
          but only that he/she knows the distractors aren’t correct.




These guidelines are an adaptation of Designing Multiple-choice Questions,
Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo, published under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.