Several Types of Multiple-Choice Questions

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• DISCRETE item: stands on its own without any additional directions or information. It may take the form of a question or an incomplete statement.
  
  
• The PASSAGE or CONTEXT DEPENDENT item provides information separate from the question stem. Thus, the stem has meaning only in relation to the passage or information provided.
  
  
  - sometimes called a DBQ in social studies "Document Based Questions"
  
  
• CORRECT ANSWER, where there is only one correct answer; the rest are definitely wrong.
  
  
• BEST ANSWER
  
  
  
  - they have different types of stems
  
  - this where the student is asked to make a fine distinction between several alternatives which are very similar, so all have some element of truth
  
  
  - seldom done correctly, this is one parents have trouble with too

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