This lesson provides step-by-step guidance on creating a Multiple Binary item in the Item Bank. This item type requires students to determine whether each answer choice to a series of prompts is True/False, Yes/No, or Correct/Incorrect. This question type can be administered online only or on paper, offers partial credit, and is automatically scored.
Before You Begin
This lesson begins assuming that users have the permissions to create new Item Bank items, and are familiar with the item creation process. To learn more about creating Item Bank items, take a look at the Create Items article.
Create Multiple Binary Item
General Item Settings and Question Setup

- Select the Multiple Binary item type.
- (Optional) Choose one or more passages by selecting Link Passage.
- Passages must be published and located in the same Work Space to be available for linking.
- Use the slider to determine if the item should Include Teacher Instructions.
- If the slider is set to Yes, enter teacher instructions into the text box.
- Enter the Question in the text box.
- The Question may also include audio, video, images, equations, or tables, as shown in the CKEditor formatting tools. Take a look at CKEditor Formatting Tools for Staff Users for more details.
- Use the Partial Credit slider to enable or disable partial credit.
- If Partial Credit is disabled, students must answer each binary correctly to receive points; if any response is incorrect, students receive no points.
- If Partial Credit is enabled, students can receive points for partially correct answers.
- Enter the maximum Total Possible Points students can earn. If Partial Credit has been enabled, the Total Possible Points field becomes uneditable, and instead displays the maximum number of points for the question according to the points assigned to each binary.
- (Optional) Enter a Sample Response as desired.
- Select the desired # of Choices, or binary prompts, with a minimum of two and a maximum of six.
- Select the desired Type of Choices, which include True/False, Yes/No, and Correct/Incorrect. Choices are also available in French and Spanish.
- Select if Optional Choices should be listed by letter or by number.
- Use the Lock Choices Order slider if the choices should be prevented from being randomized in online testing.
- Use the slider to Include Rationale, if desired.
Create Binary Table

- If Partial Credit has been enabled, the Points column populates. Enter the number of Points that should be awarded for each binary choice.
- Select the correct Answer Choice for each binary.
- Enter the Answer, or the prompt, for each binary choice.
- If Rationale has been enabled, the Rationale column populates. Enter the Rationale for each binary choice.
- Select the trashcan icon to delete a binary choice row.
- Select Add Choice to add a binary choice row.
- Select Save to save the item progress, or select Next to save and continue to the next step.
Next Steps
To learn more about creating different item types, take a look at the other articles in the Item Types manual.