Writing Multiple Choice Questions

Writing effective multiple choice questions needs to be done with a lot of care. We think that this involves following four basic principles. Here is some brief information about them before we go on to work through them individually.

1. Start With the Objectives

Effective multiple choice questions must always be linked to clearly defined objectives.

What are you trying to assess?

Is it a formative or summative assessment?

Avoid trick questions that are not related to objectives.


2. Clear and Understandable

As a general rule, language and sentence structure should be kept as simple as possible.

Take care to avoid ambiguous stems, answers and distracters.

Make sure that you are assessing the objectives rather than tricking people with questions that are difficult to comprehend.


3. No Soft Clues

It can sometimes be possible to guess the correct answer from the question itself.

Questioners may leave clues in the stem, answer or distracters that they do not intend.

Remember that you are assessing objectives not candidates ability to guess answers correctly.


4. Meaningful Feedback

In summative assessments the absolute minimum that candidates will need to know is whether they have passed or failed.

Formative assessments require more.

Candidates need to know whether their answers were right or wrong.

They also need to know why they were right or wrong.


This is a short excerpt from the Trainer Bubble 'Writing Multiple Choice Questions' training course materials, which you can download from our website at www.trainerbubble.com

Developing Well-Formed Outcomes with NLP

An outcome is a goal that you develop in such a way that conforms to your subconscious mind. A goal is usually quite general, whereas an outcome is specific to the individual and provides a very clear understanding of what to do. The structure of an outcome should activate our personal resources in such a way that it becomes actionable.

Going through the six questions creates a detailed internal representation in your mind - an important step in creating a belief in your objective. It may not be necessary to go through all of the questions for every objective. Use your discretion and apply the questions that are appropriate at the time.

1) State you outcome positively

You need to be very clear about what it is that you want so that you can remain focused. You should be precise about what you want as ambiguous definitions will not provide you with the direction you need. If you say, ‘I want to be happier’, then a good joke might suffice! However, if you were to say, ‘I want to lose 2 stone’, the intention is clear.

You should also avoid negative statements as your brain cannot process them. If you say, ‘I don’t want to work here anymore’, all your subconscious can here is, ‘work here’. If you start to think, ‘I don’t want…’ consider what you do want instead and write that as your outcome.

A useful technique when coaching is to ask the coachee what the present situation is and follow this up with what the desired future outcome is.

Where are you now? Where do you want to be?

2) State your outcome in sensory terms

The term representational system refers to how we use our five senses of smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing and feeling to represent or experience events. Everyone has a preferred representational system; some are more visual others are more feelings based. Consider what you will see, hear, feel and so on.

As a coach you should quickly establish the preferred representational system of the coachee and adapt your language to suit.

3) Evidence Procedure

Evidence procedure is another way of asking ‘How will you know that you have achieved your goal?’ The following questions should help you to understand this.

How will I know that I have achieved my outcome? What will I be doing once I have achieved it? What will I see, hear, feel etc. when I achieve it?

4) Is it ecological?

This stage is to ensure that the outcome fits in with all areas of your life. You should consider how it will affect your career, family, health etc. What will be gained? What will be lost?

5) Is it self initiated and are you in control of it?

It may be that someone else wants you to change, but it’s really not something that you want. Of course the likelihood of you achieving your outcome in this case is lessened and so you should ensure that the outcome is driven from within.

You may also find that you achieving your outcome is not solely in your control, this could make it difficult for you to achieve your outcome. Try the following questions to help at this stage.

Who is this outcome created for? Is the outcome solely down to me to achieve?

6) Is the context clearly defined?

The context is the way your outcome will happen. When, where how and with who do I want this? Asking these questions will help you define steps that need to be taken to achieve your outcome.

7) What resources are needed?

What people, knowledge, skills, attributes do you need to help you reach your outcome? Some questions to consider…

What resources do I currently have? What resources do I need to acquire? Have I achieved anything like this before? What can I learn from that? What if I act as if I already had the resources I need?

Using this process will ensure you achieve effective results each time.

This is an excerpt from the training course 'Coaching with NLP', which you can purchase and download from our website at Trainer Bubble.