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Some ideas and rules for creating the question or task (known as the Stem)
The key here is clarity - remember the candidate reading the question/stem, be clear, concise and unambiguous.
1. Try and keep the Stem to no more than 4 or 5 lines. This of course beggars the question how long is a line, but if a typical line in a type face of 12pt (comfortable to read) is 20 to 30 words long, then the whole question should be no more than 100 words.
2. It is quite a could idea to put certain key words into upper case. These typically would be words such as TRUE, FALSE,
DO, NOT, CANNOT,
HIGHEST, LEAST, LOWEST,
FIRST, LAST, MINIMUM or MAXIMUM.
Do NOT have too more than one or two, otherwise the question is becoming too complicated.
3 Keep the logic as simple to follow as possible, no double negatives or imprecise phrases.
4. Use TRUE or FALSE rather than CORRECT or INCORRECT.
5. Remember plain English rules (in both senses of the word)
6. Check spelling and grammar - do not distract the audience
7. Avoid giving clues
8. Be aware of cultural, age and gender issues
Some ideas and rules for creating the potential answers or distractors
1. A typical distractor should be no more than one or two lines long (say 20 or 30 words)
2. Try and make the length of distractors fairly equal, and as brief as possible without losing meaning..
3. NO upper case words (as in 2 above) to appear in a distractor.
4. If the distractors are, or contain, lists of dates, volumes, numbers etc. keep them in a simple ascending or descending order. And take care about what you do with leading zeros and decimal points - think how it may be interrupted by the candidate.
5. Avoid (like the proverbial plague) expressions like ‘none of the above’, or ‘other’
6. Check spelling and grammar - do not distract the audience
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