Using Multiple Choice as a Springboard for Discussion

Brandy Napolitano is in her 19th year of teaching math at Bolingbrook High School in Illinois. Throughout her teaching career, she has taught a variety of math courses, but she is especially passionate about AP Statistics. She enjoys incorporating Math Medic's EFFL lessons to actively engage her students and deepen their understanding of the material. Brandy is deeply passionate about building meaningful connections with her students and finds great fulfillment in witnessing their enthusiasm grow for a subject that many often find challenging.

Joanna Koziar is in her 14th year teaching math, and this year marks ten years in the Valley View School District in Illinois. Before joining Valley View, she taught AP Statistics using a more traditional, lecture-style approach. But after diving into Math Medic’s EFFL for AP Statistics in 2019, she hasn’t looked back. The most humbling part of her teaching journey comes from her students – especially as she watches them tackle and make sense of concepts that can feel intimidating at first.

Many of us have probably been there with multiple choice questions: correct answers receive full credit and incorrect answers receive no credit. It’s a very straightforward way to grade these questions, but also presents several drawbacks. Namely, students get no credit for good thinking, and rarely get the kind of specific feedback that allows them to learn from the assessment.

Keep reading for a different approach to grading these questions!

How it works

Consider a multiple choice question that has 5 answer choices. Each question is worth 5 points. 

• If the question is answered correctly, the student would earn 5 points. 

• If the question is answered incorrectly, the student can earn points for correctly eliminating distractors, up to a maximum of 3 points.

Let’s take a specific look at how that works. We’ll use the same question stem from an AP Statistics test and illustrate the different ways that students can earn partial credit. 

5 points		The correct answer is C. This student correctly chose C and earns 5 points. Eliminating distractors in this case is unnecessary to earn credit, but does help the student distinguish between good and bad answer choices.
3 points		The correct answer is C. This student incorrectly chose A, but correctly eliminated 3 wrong choices AND did not eliminate the correct answer.
2 points		The correct answer is C. This student incorrectly chose A, but correctly eliminated 2 wrong choices AND did not eliminate the correct answer.
1 point		The correct answer is C. This student incorrectly chose A, but correctly eliminated 1 wrong choice AND did not eliminate the correct answer.
0 points		The correct answer is C. This student incorrectly chose A, and in their elimination process, eliminated the correct answer. Note: Any final answer choice coupled with eliminating the correct answer earns 0 points. Note: An incorrect choice without any eliminated distractors also earns 0 points.
DISCLAIMER	Students get caught up sometimes in the elimination of distractors and tend to try and eliminate 4 out of 5 responses. While this could work in their benefit if they end up choosing the correct answer, it often works against them. If you are going to adopt this method in your classroom, you should strongly encourage your students to eliminate up to three answer choices that they are absolutely certain are incorrect in order to best guarantee some partial credit. If they eliminate 4 choices and end up choosing the wrong answer, they have no chance of earning any partial credit, thereby defeating the purpose of the method.

As of 2026-2027, AP Statistics multiple choice questions will have 4 answer choices instead of 5. We anticipate using the same idea, but adjusting scores accordingly to 4, 2, 1, 0.

Benefits

In our years of using this method, we have found the academic discussion among our students to be incredibly worthwhile. They challenge each other’s learning, often backing up their ideas with notes and lessons.They debate details back and forth, which allows for some of the best learning to happen. 

It has grown a culture where students can have more targeted conversations with each other, asking why an answer choice is incorrect and not just what is the right answer. They debate vocabulary; they go back and reference the question; they really embrace the analysis of the details. They ultimately learn to slow down and read all of the answer choices carefully, which is something we always encourage them to do as test takers. 

We bring this idea to all of you not because it is our own creation, but because it is something we once learned together in a workshop and have adopted in our classrooms. We’ve seen the benefits and how deeply classroom discussions are enriched and hope this method brings the same value to your students.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us:

• Brandy Napolitano: napolitanob@vvsd.org

• Joanna Koziar: koziarj@vvsd.org