Why wrong answers matter in a self-checking activity
In a maze, the boxes touching the student's box hold the right answer and some wrong ones. In a riddle decoder, the answer bank holds right and wrong answers side by side. If the wrong answers are silly, the student can find the right one without working the question, and the activity stops checking anything. If they are mistakes the student might really make, the student has to work it out, and a slip leads to a dead end or a wrong letter, which is the point.
Five rules for a good wrong answer
1. Start from real mistakes
The best source is your own marking. Which wrong answers come up again and again for this topic? A student who writes 56 for 7 times 9 has mixed up 2 facts. A student who writes 0.5 for 1/5 has read the fraction as a decimal. Those are the wrong answers worth printing, because they catch the exact mistake you want the student to notice.
2. Make it plausible
A wrong answer should be close enough that a student who has not worked it out cannot rule it out at a glance. For 6 times 7, the answer 1,000 is no use. The answer 43 is.
3. Keep one clearly right answer
Check that no wrong answer is also right in some reading of the question. If the answer to “half of 10” is 5, a wrong answer of 5.0 is also right. If the question can be read 2 ways, rewrite the question rather than the answers.
4. Keep the same form and units
If the answer is 3/4, the wrong answers should be fractions too. If the answer is 12 cm, write 14 cm, not 14. A wrong answer in a different form stands out and gets ruled out for the wrong reason. The same goes for length: one long answer among short ones draws the eye.
5. Avoid all of the above, and other questions' answers
“All of the above” and “none of the above” do not fit a maze or a riddle, and in any activity they test spotting rather than knowing. Do not reuse the correct answer of another question in the same set as a wrong answer either. In a maze or a riddle it would send the student to the wrong place for the wrong reason. The maker drops these for you.
How the maker writes wrong answers
Your own wrong answers always come first. For number answers, the maker can add more by fixed rules, in this order:
- off by one in the last written place, so 0.24 and 0.26 for 0.25;
- the sign flipped, only when the answer is negative or the question has a minus sign;
- a mixed-up operation, when the question is 2 numbers and one operation: added instead of multiplied and back, added instead of subtracted, multiplied instead of divided, a power worked as a product (7^2 as 14), and fractions added top and bottom (1/2 + 1/4 as 2/6);
- a place value slip, for whole numbers and decimals: ten times the answer, and a tenth of it;
- off by two, then off by three.
Any candidate that equals the answer, another question's correct answer, or a wrong answer already kept is dropped. The how it works page sets out the same rules.
Worked example: a times table and a fraction
6 times 7 = 42
Before any are dropped, the rules give these wrong answers, in order:
- off by one: 41 and 43;
- sign flipped: none, because there is no minus sign and the answer is positive;
- mixed-up operation: 13, the 2 numbers added;
- place value: 420, and no tenth, because 4.2 is not written as a whole number like 42;
- off by two and three: 40, 44, 39 and 45.
If the same set also asks 5 times 8, then 40 is that question's correct answer, so it is dropped from the list for 6 times 7. If you typed 48 yourself, because students mix up 6 times 7 and 6 times 8, it comes before all of these.
1/2 + 1/4 = 3/4
- off by one, over the same bottom number: 2/4 and 4/4;
- mixed-up operation: 2/6, tops and bottoms added, and 1/8, the 2 fractions multiplied;
- then off by two or three, such as 5/4 (a fraction has no place value slip).
2/6 is the wrong answer you most want here, because it is the mistake students most often make with fractions. A student who lands on it in a maze hits a dead end and goes back to the question. You can try both questions on the maker, and see finished sheets on the examples page.
Word and science answers
For words, the optional word mode makes spelling near misses of the longest word: 2 neighbouring letters swapped, a letter doubled, a doubled letter written once, or a vowel changed. That suits spelling practice. For meaning, such as the name of a process or a part of a cell, the useful wrong answers are the ones students confuse with it, and only you know those. Type them in yourself.
Common mistakes
- Wrong answers nobody would choose, so the student picks the right one without working.
- A wrong answer in a different unit or form from the right one, which gives the right one away.
- A wrong answer that is also correct, such as 0.5 when the answer is 1/2.
- Typing the same wrong answer for every question, so students learn to skip it.
- Relying on rule-made wrong answers for a topic where the real mistakes are about meaning, not arithmetic.
Sources
- Designing Multiple-Choice Questions, Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo. Make distractors appealing and plausible, base them on common student errors, avoid all of the above and none of the above, and make sure exactly one option is the best answer. Last reviewed 19 October 2026.
- Improving Your Test Questions, Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Make all alternatives plausible to the less skilled student, keep them similar in length and grammatically parallel, and make sure only one is correct. Last reviewed 19 October 2026.
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