CBT Item Authoring and Banking 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: An item development team uses a 'style guide' for item authoring primarily to ensure:
- Items are written at the highest possible difficulty level
- Consistency in grammar, formatting, and tone across all items (Correct answer)
- Each item author contributes an equal number of items
- Items are aligned to a specific passing score
Correct answer: Consistency in grammar, formatting, and tone across all items
A style guide standardizes writing conventions so that no item appears noticeably different from others, reducing construct-irrelevant cues.
Question 2: Which item bank field is MOST critical for preventing overexposure of secure items?
- Item author name
- Administration count / usage history (Correct answer)
- Date of last editorial review
- Cognitive level classification
Correct answer: Administration count / usage history
Tracking how many times an item has been administered allows test developers to retire or rotate items before they become widely known.
Question 3: A test developer notices that an item's point-biserial correlation is negative. This MOST likely indicates:
- The item is very difficult and should be scored with extra weight
- High-scoring candidates are choosing a wrong option more than low-scoring candidates (Correct answer)
- The item measures a unique construct not covered by other items
- The item was written with a clang association distractor
Correct answer: High-scoring candidates are choosing a wrong option more than low-scoring candidates
A negative point-biserial means candidates who scored high overall are getting the item wrong, suggesting a keying error or a flawed stem.
Question 4: Which of the following BEST describes the role of a 'blueprint' in item banking?
- A schematic of the item bank software architecture
- A specification document defining content domains, cognitive levels, and item counts for a test form (Correct answer)
- A list of all items authored by a single SME
- A guideline for acceptable item difficulty ranges
Correct answer: A specification document defining content domains, cognitive levels, and item counts for a test form
A test blueprint (or table of specifications) defines how many items per content area and cognitive level must appear on each form.
Question 5: In computer-adaptive testing (CAT), item bank size requirements are larger than for linear tests primarily because:
- CAT items must be written at a single difficulty level
- A large pool is needed to prevent item overexposure and maintain content coverage across all ability levels (Correct answer)
- Adaptive algorithms require more metadata fields per item
- CAT administrations are longer than linear administrations
Correct answer: A large pool is needed to prevent item overexposure and maintain content coverage across all ability levels
CAT selects items adaptively from the pool, requiring sufficient items at every difficulty level to cover all candidates while limiting repeat exposure.
Question 6: When an item stem includes the phrase 'which of the following is NOT,' what review consideration is MOST important?
- Ensure all three incorrect options are homogeneous
- Capitalize or bold the word NOT to prevent misreading (Correct answer)
- Verify the item targets only recall-level cognition
- Limit the stem to fewer than ten words
Correct answer: Capitalize or bold the word NOT to prevent misreading
Negative stems are permitted but must be visually emphasized so candidates do not miss the negation and answer the wrong question.
Question 7: Which of the following is the BEST definition of 'item shells' in item authoring?
- Archived items that have been retired from the active bank
- Template structures with variable content slots that allow rapid generation of parallel items (Correct answer)
- Items flagged for security review
- Items that have zero discrimination and are pending deletion
Correct answer: Template structures with variable content slots that allow rapid generation of parallel items
Item shells (or item templates) provide a fixed stem structure with variable slots, enabling efficient production of many parallel items from one template.
CBT Item Authoring and Banking 3
An item development team uses a 'style guide' for item authoring primarily to ensure: