With the development of scantron technology, MC exams are becoming more and more common. In fact, until recently, the SAT, one of the most crucial exams for a student, consisted solely of multiple choice questions. According to Fairtest, “most standardized tests, including state exams and most commercial achievement tests, are made up primarily of multiple-choice items.” However, multiple choice tests are not as effective as educators think they are.
The main problem with multiple choice tests is that they can be very subjective. According to Fairtest, “all these are subjective decisions that can be biased in ways that unfairly reward or harm some test-takers.” An issue often arises when a student has a good comprehension of the question but there appear to be two or more reasonable answers.

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Another issue with MC exams is that students sometimes can answer a question correctly without having a good understanding of the material tested. For example, an Algebra II multiple choice exam may ask a question: “Solve x^2 + 2*x + 1 = 0. Use the quadratic formula.” A student does not actually have to know the quadratic formula to answer this question.
Also, a vocabulary multiple choice question may allow a student to answer the question correctly by just knowing which word “sounds right” without being able to recite it in an essay or in any more practical application. Students can also answer a question correctly without knowing the answer as long as they know that the rest of the answer choices are incorrect.
Also, with MC exams, educators will rarely be able to conclude why students can have chosen the incorrect answer. They are unable to address common misconceptions in the classroom like they can often do with free response questions. Since multiple choice exams are often used to evaluate an instructor’s performance, teachers are often more inclined to focus more on test-taking strategies than on actual classroom material.
Multiple guess exams are often time-constrained. The stress from rushing through the tests rather than from the lack of knowledge can contribute to some students’ low performance. The last problem with multiple choice exams is that some students can be learn to believe that there is only one correct answer to a question. In humanities, multiple theories and views are often used to answer a question. For example, Marxists and Behaviorists often have conflicting views on the causes of war. Some multiple choice exams can address this issue but it is still difficult to accommodate it in most circumstances.
Multiple choice exams have issues. In my opinion, multiple choices exams should be always combined with free-response for better efficiency.