Multiple ChoiceMultiple Choice Quiz Strategies: Using Your Intuition
Want to know what makes me mad? Educators make mistakes while writing multiple choice questions, and students suffer the consequences.
The person who writes the quiz might phrase a question in a way that makes it possible for two different answers to be correct, or they might accidentally write questions in a misleading way. Unless you know the material very well, you might never even notice that the person who wrote the quiz questions made a mistake. And when you do notice, he's likely to tell you you're wrong because it's easier to win an argument with you than it is to admit his mistake to all his colleagues and students.
What's even worse is when it's an online quiz and you never have the opportunity to see the correct answers after the quiz. So you can't even find out whether you are getting points deducted because of the teacher's mistake. It's ironic, not allowing an assessment to be assessed.
Multiple choice quizzes are all about laziness, anyway. They are not a good way to measure learning. If there are four options, students who don't know the answers will be right 25% of the time. The primary advantage of this type of test is that teachers can grade them easily. Multiple choice questions are helpful for national assessments administered for research purposes, but they're inappropriate for use by teachers who are actually trying to educate. Any time you need to complete a multiple choice assessment, use these strategies to improve your outcome.
Focus on What You DO Know
The strategy most often taught for multiple choice questions is to “eliminate all the answers you know are wrong and then take an educated guess. This is obvious, but some students don’t really use it. The point is to rule out one or two answers that you think are wrong and then ask your intuition which of the other answers seems most likely to be correct. Your intuition is stronger when you are asking it to consider two possibilities instead of four.
Narrow It Down to Two Possibilities, and Imagine Tomorrow
Imagine that tomorrow you'll find out the correct answer was “d”. Does that answer feel realistic? Maybe it has the ring of truth, so that you say, Oh, of course, that makes sense... Now imagine a future where you find out "b" is correct. Which feels more "right" to your intuition?
Eliminate the Options That Seem Like Something You Would Make Up if You Were Trying to Make Up Answers
It takes some creativity to make up wrong answers! Some person came up with these, and you can get inside their heads by putting yourself in their position. Some answers just seem made-up.
Look for Answers That Are Given Away Within Other Questions
For example, question #7 might say, "What is the sun made of?" (answer: plasma) and question #12 might say, "Stars are giant, shining spheres made of plasma and held together by what?" (answer: gravity). Answers are often given away like this, so it's a good idea to scan the other questions when you get to a difficult one.
You Can Sometimes Guess Based on the Teacher's Personality
Any time you struggle with a question, try to visualize the teacher writing this quiz. This is easier if the quiz was written by your professor, because you know her or him. Again, it's all a matter of intuition.
For example, you might see that "a" and "b" are related to each other, but "c" and "d" are very different. Ask yourself if your teacher would try to trick you by giving two similar answers when one of them is correct, like "ecosystem" and "solar system":
The sun, 8 planets, and their moons make up the...
1. Galaxy
2. Universe
3. Ecosystem
4. Solar System
Or would s/he try to trick you by showing two similar words as incorrect answers? It's a little meaner and trickier. Like this:
The sun, 8 planets, and their moons make up the...
1. Inner planets
2. Outer planets
3. Galaxy
4. Solar System
In this case, the teacher is trying to trick the student into guessing the wrong answer by showing two related wrong answers (inner planets and outer planets). You have to use your intuition to decide which type of trick fits your teacher's personality. And if you don't know the person who wrote the quiz, you'll have to get to know that person by paying attention to the way they wrote other questions and answers.
Make the Best of the Bad Situation
I hope you have good teachers who don't resort to multiple choice questions, but these strategies will serve you well if you need them. Seriously, what is the reason for letting students select one of four answers instead of simply asking them to write the answer? If they know the answer, they should be able to personally write it. Multiple choice questions fill the mind with wrong ideas by showing lots of incorrect answers right next to the correct answer. This clutters our minds with useless data. And a student who didn't study for the quiz will be exposed to a lot of wrong answers and gain useless, inaccurate ideas that get in the way of real learning. Making the best of a bad situation, you can think of it like a game and use your intuition to get the best possible outcome.