Its use makes the question harder and more discriminating, because the uncertain student cannot focus on a set of options that must contain the answer. Don't include superfluous information in the options. The reasons given for 8 above apply. Z. Students are very sensitive to this tendency and take advantage of it. Don't use specific determiners in distractors.
Students learn to classify such statements as distractors when otherwise ignorant.
Don't repeat wording from the stem in the correct option. Again, an ignorant student will take advantage of this practice. Errors to avoid Most violations of the recommendations given thus far should not be classified as outright errors, but, instead, perhaps, as lapses of judgement. And, as almost all rules have exceptions, there are probably circumstances where some of 1-11 above would not hold. These are more likely to appear in distractors than in the stem and the correct answer, which get more scrutiny from the test preparer.