Multiple Choice Questions. Easier or harder?

Which paper is easier? Multiple choice or open-ended?

Many students are less likely to study as hard if they know that a test is multiple choice.

One's ability to provide a correct answer is significantly increased when given a choice. In an exam of 100 MCQs, any candidate without prior knowledge on the tested subject can answer "C" for every question and would still score 25 marks give or take. This is assuming that the answers are equally distributed.

But multiple choice tests can be made to be very difficult as well. Sometimes, they can be harder than open-ended questions. In open-ended questions, candidates can demonstrate their reasoning for a chosen answer. So even if their answer is not coherent with the examiner's, they can be given marks for the understanding of the subject matter they have demonstrated.

The allocation of marks is also different for multiple choice and open-ended tests. For multiple choice tests, every question, difficult or easy, is worth the same mark. This is not the same for open-ended tests, where difficult questions are usually allocated more marks. Therefore, if you spend twenty minutes in a test solving an 8-mark question, you'll get the full 8 marks if you answer it correctly in an open-ended test. If the same question were to come out in a multiple choice test, you'll only score 1 mark, identical in value to any other easy question.

Now suppose you made a careless mistake in your working and it gives you an erroneous final answer. In the MCQ test, you will get zero marks, for the simple reason that the answer is wrong. In the open-ended test however, you might still get 6 marks or 5 marks for demonstrating understanding of the subject matter.

My conclusion is that multiple choice tests can sometimes look deceivingly easy and sometimes it can be mentally tiring trying to decipher the correct answer.