I comparable password-pattern I noticed: Options that are clearly longest or most difficult to spell are more likely to be the correct answer for multiple choice type questions (and conversely: Options that are short and easy to spell compared to others are less likely to be correct).
My reasoning is that people tend to spend less energy on less important things, hence won’t take as much effort (time and focus to spell) when creating the bad options.
This is very similar to lectio difficilior potior in textual criticism! I.e. if you have no other evidence, then the difficult reading is the stronger one.
Tangentially, I noticed the strongest version of this was when the testmaker added some sort of clarification or hedging to one of the answers (like stating “all other things being equal” or the like). Very unlikely you’d just add that to a wrong answer!
I comparable password-pattern I noticed: Options that are clearly longest or most difficult to spell are more likely to be the correct answer for multiple choice type questions (and conversely: Options that are short and easy to spell compared to others are less likely to be correct).
My reasoning is that people tend to spend less energy on less important things, hence won’t take as much effort (time and focus to spell) when creating the bad options.
This is very similar to lectio difficilior potior in textual criticism! I.e. if you have no other evidence, then the difficult reading is the stronger one.
Tangentially, I noticed the strongest version of this was when the testmaker added some sort of clarification or hedging to one of the answers (like stating “all other things being equal” or the like). Very unlikely you’d just add that to a wrong answer!