The document provides guidelines for constructing effective true-false test items. It outlines 7 rules of thumb: 1) Do not provide hints in the statement, 2) Avoid absolute terms like "always" and "never", 3) Keep statements short to avoid ambiguity, 4) Avoid trick questions with minor errors, 5) Do not quote textbooks verbatim, 6) Avoid strong determiners that make the statement obviously true or false, and 7) Do not have an unbalanced number of true and false statements. Following these rules can help create true-false items that reliably discriminate between students who know the material and those guessing.

1. Laguna State Polytechnic University
San Pablo City Campus
Brgy. Del Remedio, San Pablo City
Written Report
In
EDUC 6-A – Assessment of Student Learning I
Prepared By:
Angeles, Maria Monica M.
BSEd 2-S
LESSON 3.3:
CONSTRUCTING A TRUE – FALSE TEST
Binomial-choice tests are tests that have only two (2) options such as true or false, right or
wrong, good or better, and so on. A student who knows nothing of the content of the examination
would have a 50% chance of getting the correct answer by sheer guess work. Although correction-for-
guessing formulas exist, it is best that the teacher ensures that a true-false item is able to discriminate
properly between those who know and those who are just guessing. A modified true-false test can
offset the effect of guessing by requiring students to explain their answer and to disregard a correct
answer if the explanation is incorrect.
Here are some rules of thumb in constructing true-false items:
1. Do not give a hint (inadvertently) in the body of question.
Example. The Philippines gained its independence in 1898 and therefore celebrated its
centennial year in 2000.
Obviously, the answer is FALSE because 100 years from 1898 is not 2000 but 1998.
2. Avoid using the words “always”, “never”, “often” and other adverbs that tend to be either
always true or always false.
Example. Christmas always falls on Sunday because it is a Sabbath day.

2. Statements that use the word “always” are almost always false. A test-wise student can
easily guess his way through a test like these and get high scores even if he does not know
anything about the test.
3. Avoid long sentences as these tend to be “true”. Keep sentences short.
Example. Tests need to be valid, reliable and useful, although, it would require a great amount
of time and effort to ensure that tests possess these test characteristics.
Notice that the statement is true. However, we are also not sure which part of the
sentence is deemed true by the student. It is just fortunate that in this case, all parts of the
above sentence are true. The following example illustrates what can go wrong in long sentences.
Example. Tests need to be valid, reliable and useful since it takes very little amount of time,
money and effort to construct tests with these characteristics.
The first part of the sentence is true but the second part is debatable and may, in fact,
false. Thus, a “true” response is correct and also, a “false” response is correct.
4. Avoid trick statements with some minor misleading word or spelling anomaly, misplaced
phrases, etc. A wise student who does not know the about the subject matter may detect this
strategy and thus get the answer correctly.
Example. The principle of our school is Mr. Albert P. Panadero.
The principal’s name may actually be correct but since the word is misspelled and the
entire sentence takes different meaning. The answer is false. This is as an example of a tricky but
utterly useless item.
5. Avoid quoting verbatim from reference materials or textbooks. This practice sends wrong signal
that it is necessary to memorize the textbook word for word and thus, acquisition of higher
thinking skills are not given importance.
6. Avoid specific determiners or give-away qualifiers. Students quickly learn that strongly worded
statements are more likely to be false than true, for example, statements with “never”, “no”,
“all” or “always”. Moderately worded statements are more likely to be true than false.
Statements with “many”, “often”, “sometimes”, “generally”, “frequently” or “some” should be
avoided.
7. With true or false questions, avoid grossly disproportionate number of either true or false
statements or even patterns in the occurrence of true and false statements.