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If possible, avoid the choices "All of the above" and "None of the above". If you do include them, make sure that they appear as correct answers some of the time.

It is tempting to resort to these alternatives but their use can be flawed. To begin with, they often appear as an alternative that is not the correct response. If you do use them, be sure that they constitute the correct answer part of the time. An "all of the above" alternative could be exploited by a test-wise students who will recognise it as the correct choice by identifying only two correct alternatives.

Similarly, a student who can identify one wrong alternative can then also rule this response out. Clearly, the student's chance of guessing the correct answer improves as they employ these techniques. Although a similar process of elimination is not possible with "none of the above", it is the case that when this option is used as the correct answer, the question is only testing the students' ability to rule out wrong answers, and this does not guarantee that they know the correct one. (Gronlund 1988)


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