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MCQ technique
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Abstract
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Candidates taking multiple choice question (MCQ) examinations are often unsure of the best strategy to use when uncertain of the answer to a question. Some authorities advocate a cautious ‘never guess' strategy and others suggest a bold ‘guess everything’ approach. In this study, candidates who had taken a MCQ paper were asked to go back and guess the questions initially marked ‘don't know’. The resultant ‘guess scores' ranged from −0.6% to 6%. It was concluded that many candidates could substantially increase their scores by adopting a bolder approach. It is proposed that the guess score is a useful measure of the effectiveness of the candidate's MCQ technique.
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1994
References
Fleming, P.R. (1988) The profitability of ‘guessing’ in multiple choice papers. Medical Education, 22, 509–513.Google Scholar
Harden, R. McG., Brown, R.A., Biran, L.A., Dallas Ross, W.P. & Wakeford, R.E. (1976) Multiple choice questions: to guess or not to guess. Medical Education, 10, 27–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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