Revamping Your Multiple-Choice Questions with AI

By – Calvin Blackwell

Does the thought of writing your final exams give you the blues? Fear not, fellow educators, because I’ve got a helpful tip to elevate your exam game!  

Let’s be honest—AI-generated questions sometimes miss the mark. But don’t worry! By incorporating best practices for writing multiple-choice questions, you can significantly enhance the quality of AI-generated duds. 

Last week, I was introduced to a wonderful, short guide to writing better multiple-choice questions (“Is this a trick question?”). But here’s the best part – you don’t have to read the document to use it to improve your questions. Instead, you can let AI read the document and apply the principles to your already created multiple-choice questions. Those original multiple-choice questions may be your own, or they may have been previously generated by AI. By combining AI power with expert insights, you’ll create an improved set of questions that can help you effectively evaluate your students’ learning. 

Here’s how you do it. In your favorite AI platform, upload your source data (a textbook chapter, slides, etc.) and ask the AI to generate 10/20/however many you want multiple-choice questions. Put those questions into a document. Then, upload your questions and the “Is this a trick question” pdf into the AI. Now, tell the AI you want it to re-write those questions using the best practices in “Is this a trick question?.” Voila, you have an improved set of questions!  

When I did this, the quality of the AI-generated multiple-choice questions improved dramatically. Hopefully, this process will work for you, too!  

Tip of the hat to Dr. Jason Neiffer, Executive Director of Montana Digital Academy, for this idea.  

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