Quiz Writing Best Practices

Quizzes are one of the most common forms of assessment. Instructors can use quizzes to not only test students but also check on their students’ progress throughout a course. When used effectively, quizzes can assess students in a variety of ways. This piece will provide recommendations and best practices for enhancing the quality of quiz content.

As an instructor, if you want to see what your students know, understand, and can do, you need to ask the questions that give you the clearest insight into where they are in their learning journey. The best questions build and reinforce their understanding of key concepts and test their deeper critical thinking skills. Poorly constructed questions can lead to frustration and may misrepresent students' abilities, making it difficult to track progress accurately. Clear and fair questions enhance engagement and reinforce learning by encouraging students to apply and synthesize information.

Before writing your quiz, determine which learning outcomes will be assessed on the quiz. You will need to revisit the course- and module-level objectives and focus on the verbs used in each one. The level that the verbs fall under within Bloom’s taxonomy (Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create) can help you determine the kinds of questions to write (University of South Australia, 2020).

Module objectives that assess remembering, for example, target recall of information. These objectives begin with verbs like “identify,” “list,” or “name.” If you are writing quiz questions to assess remembering, the questions should be geared toward recall and memorization.

• Example 1: What are the three branches of the U.S. government?
• Example 2: List the benefits of population health.

Analysis requires students to break down concepts and determine how the parts relate to each other or to an overall purpose. These objectives begin with verbs like “compare,” “distinguish,” and “examine.” Analysis questions should ask students to apply learned concepts to situations.

• Example 1: How do social and economic patterns affect voting patterns?
• Example 2: Examine the data presented in this graph and identify any potential biases.

Multiple-choice and multiple-answer questions are often the most common questions on quizzes. While there are benefits to using these kinds of questions, there are some limitations as well. According to Zimmaro (2016), some of the limitations to multiple-choice questions are as follows:

• It can be difficult to find plausible distractors (i.e., incorrect answer choices presented with the question).
• They are ineffective for measuring writing ability, types of problem-solving, and the ability to organize and express ideas.
• Their efficacy depends on the student’s reading ability and the instructor’s writing ability.
• These questions are better suited to testing factual knowledge than assessing higher levels of cognitive thinking.
• They can encourage guessing.

Given these limitations, we recommend varying question types. Using a mix of question types can prevent guessing and better allow you to see what students know. Instructors should use the course- and module-level objectives to guide them in choosing the best kinds of questions to assess their students' knowledge. Other question types can include the following:

• True or false
• Fill-in-the-blank
• If-then scenarios
• Matching
• Sorting into categories
• Ordering

Aside from using different question types, it can also be helpful to vary the content in your questions. Examples of this can be using pictures that require students to apply principles and concepts, and using charts, tables, or figures that require interpretation (Zimmaro, 2016). This keeps the quiz engaging and tests different aspects of the students' knowledge. Writing different types of quiz questions produces results that more accurately reflect what students know.
Note: If you do decide to incorporate images, charts, or tables into your quiz, be sure they have appropriate alt text and are accessible. To learn more about alt text, read the Envision piece No Sweat Alt Text.

Randomizing answer options in multiple-choice and multiple-answer questions is an easy way to focus students on selecting the best answers and not just their quiz-taking strategy.

Cognitive load on quizzes refers to the amount of effort students must use to process and answer questions. When questions are complex or confusing, more cognitive load is placed on the student, which can impact how they respond to quiz questions. Using direct questions and avoiding negative phrasing are two ways to reduce cognitive load.

Direct questions are preferred over incomplete statements. While incomplete statements can be acceptable, they are most effective when the blank is placed at the end of the sentence, as gaps in the middle are more mentally taxing. However, if placing the blank at the end leads to excessive repetition in the answer choices, it’s better to position the gap in the middle to avoid redundancy (University of South Australia, 2020).

• Preferred: When was the Americans with Disabilities Act signed into law?
• Acceptable: The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law on ____________.

Word the stem positively; avoid negative phrasing such as “not” or “except.” This can be seen as sneaky and can set up the wrong mood for learning. The goal is to assess learning, not to trap students (University of South Australia, 2020). If this cannot be avoided, the negative words should be emphasized with bolding (e.g., “Which of the following is not an example …”).

All choices on a quiz should be plausible. This forces students to think critically and truly understand the material.

The number of answer choices should range from three to five. Distractors must be plausible enough that students unfamiliar with the material might consider them correct. If it’s difficult to create more than two credible distractors, it’s better to stick with three options rather than adding an unrealistic distractor that no reasonable quiz-taker would choose (University of South Australia, 2020).

Quizzes are not meant to trick quiz-takers or confuse them by changing one word or mixing correct parts of an answer with an incorrect choice. Instead, quizzes should present challenging questions that make students think about their answers. Accordingly, instructors should write questions for which there is one and only one correct or clearly best answer.

Distractors are incorrect answers that could be mistaken for the correct answer by someone who does not fully understand the material. Take the time to write high-quality distractors that are not overly ridiculous and focus on the content.

Here are some suggestions from Zimmaro (2016):

• Incorporate common misconceptions or mistakes of students in distractors.
• Use familiar phrases when writing distractors.
• While distractors are incorrect answers, they should still have an element of truth to them.

Avoid using “All of these,” “None of these,” or “Both A and B” as answer choices. These options can sometimes be too predictable or misleading. They also might encourage guessing rather than true assessment, reducing the question's effectiveness (University of South Australia, 2020). The following examples describe the limitations of these answer choices:

• For “All of the above,” students only need some information to answer the question. For example, if students can identify one answer choice as incorrect, they can eliminate “All of the above” as an answer choice (Zimmaro, 2016).
• Using “None of the above” as the correct answer choice shows the students’ ability to find incorrect answers. The instructor cannot assess if students know the correct answer to the question (Zimmaro, 2016).

Correct answer choices tend to have more details, making them longer. All answer choices should be similar in length, complexity, and grammatical structure to avoid unintentional clues. Consistent formatting helps ensure students focus on the content rather than the format of the options (Brame, 2013).

Effective quiz questions evaluate what students know and help reinforce key concepts, encourage deeper understanding, and guide future instruction. By focusing on clarity, alignment with objectives, and thoughtful answer design, instructors can create quizzes that genuinely support learning rather than just measure it.

Brame, C. J. (2013). Writing good multiple choice test questions. AdvancED: The Institute for the Advancement of Higher Education.

University of South Australia. (2020). Writing effective quiz questions.

Zimmaro, D. M. (2016). Writing good multiple-choice exams. The University of Texas at Austin Faculty Innovation Center.