Advanced Assessment Question: Basic Multiple Choice
The Multiple Choice Question allows you to select one or more correct answer(s) from a number of potential answers.
Monica Burke avatar
Written by Monica Burke
Updated over a week ago

Now that you've started to build an advanced assessment, you may want to add a Multiple Choice question.

➡️ Need help getting started with Advanced Assessment first? Click here

There are two types of Multiple Choice questions:

  • Basic (this article): standard formatting; a question prompt with a list of answer choices. Basic multiple choice have four formatting options; standard, multiple response, true or false, and block layout.

  • Choice Matrix: matrix formatting; list of stems (rows) that have multiple answer options (columns). Choice matrix questions have three layout options; standard, inline, and labels. Click here for more information.

In the Basic Multiple Choice question, the student will pick from a list of answer options.

Example:

💡 Tip from the Otus Team: There are many layout options to choose from. More information about these layouts can be found further in this article under the More Options section. Here are example of other layouts:


Build the Question

If you are creating a new item, select the + Create button on the assessment builder, title the item, then select the Add New plus sign to add a question.

If you are adding to an existing item, simply select the Add New plus sign (as shown above) to add a question to the item.

Next, select the Multiple Choice category from the options on the left, then choose one of the four basic multiple choice question options Multiple Choice - standard, Multiple choice - multiple response, True or False, or Multiple Choice - block layout.

❗ All four of the above options have the same creation process. The only difference is in the formatting that is set by default. This article will use the Multiple choice - standard question as the example, but the other three are created with the exact same steps.

Compose Question and Add Answer Options

  • Compose question: type the question stem in this field

  • Multiple choice options: type the answer choices into these fields.

  • To add answer options, select the blue + ADD button.

  • To reorder answer options, click and drag the reorder button to the left of the answer choice.

  • To delete an option, select the trash can icon.

  • You have many formatting options from the RichTexttoolbar, including changing the font size, adding tables, using math symbols, adding multimedia, and more! Click here for more information on the different functions of the Rich Text toolbar.

  • Show Advanced Accessibility Options: In some uncommon cases when using the screen reader accessibility tool, it may be necessary to explicitly articulate the text that will be read aloud. For more information, click here.


Set Answers and Scoring

Point Value and Choosing Correct Answers

  • Determine the number of points the question is worth.

  • Select the correct answer(s) in this section. You can select more than one correct answer. For information on how to award partial credit, see below.

Looking for "select all that apply"?

We recommend using the Choice Matrix style question, and using a Yes/No option. For example:

➡️ If there is more than one single correct answer (different than "select all that apply"), you can add an alternate answer by selecting the + button to add an alternate answer. Here is an example of a question where an alternate answer would need to be provided:

  • In the example above, the student can earn credit by choosing Detroit OR Tampa.

  • To allow for both answers to receive full credit, select the + button, then indicate the alternate answer.


Student Preview

It's highly recommended to Preview the question before adding it to the assessment. This displays the question as the students will see it and also verifies that the answers and scoring work as expected.

  • Step 1: Select the Preview button to go into Preview mode.

  • Step 2: Answer the question with the correct answers, including alternates.

    • Selecting Show Answers will present the correct answers.

  • Step 3: Verify that the auto-score correctly calculates the point value.

Here is a short clip of this question type from the student's perspective.

➡️ Want to preview the entire assessment? Click here for details.


More Options

There are other scoring and layout options available.

Other Scoring Options

  • Unscored/Practice usage: removes all scoring from the item.

  • Check answer button & Check answer attempts: find more information here!

  • Penalty points: use this option if you want students to lose points for giving incorrect answers.

  • Scoring type: This is what will allow you to award partial credit.

    ➡️ Exact Match

    The entire question must be answered correctly to receive the point(s).

    ➡️ Partial Match per Response

    Each response is scored independently, and each is worth the number of points indicated in the point(s) field.

    ➡️ Partial Match

    Similar to partial match per response, each response is scored independently, but the point value indicated in the point(s) field is evenly split among the responses.

  • Minimum score if attempted: student will receive points as long as the question has been attempted (if the question is left blank or is unanswered, the student will not earn those points).

Layout Options

The style, orientation, and font size of the layout can be changed.

➡️ Style

There are three style options:

  • If you choose Block, you will then have another option to choose the label type.

➡️ Orientation

  • If you choose Horizontal, you must determine how many columns to display:

➡️ Change the font size:

In the Font size dropdown menu, you can change the font size of all components of the question to small, normal, large, extra large, or huge.


Otus Live Video

Below is a video from our Otus Live series on multiple choice questions in Advanced Assessment.


Learnosity Resources

Video Tutorial


Next Steps

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