How to Answer Multiple Choice Questions and Score High
Objective and CBT exams reward strategy, not only knowledge. Here is how to pace yourself, eliminate options and avoid the traps that cost easy marks in JAMB and school tests.
6 min read
In my first JAMB CBT, I spent eleven minutes on question 4. Eleven. It was a calculation I knew I could do, and I refused to let it go. I got it right, felt clever for about two seconds, then looked at the timer and realised I had 46 questions left and not enough minutes. I rushed the rest and left twelve unanswered.
That day taught me the most important thing about objective exams: the paper is not testing what you know, it is testing what you can produce under a clock. Two students with the same knowledge can score 240 and 180 purely on technique.
Here is the technique.
Rule 1: Do three passes, never one
Never move through the paper in a single straight line. Use three passes.
Pass 1 — the harvest (about 50% of your time). Answer only what you know immediately. Ten to twenty seconds per question. Anything that needs real thinking, flag it and move. This locks in every easy mark before the clock becomes your enemy.
Pass 2 — the workshop (about 35%). Return to the flagged ones. Now you have time and, importantly, a calmer head. You will also find that some later questions reminded you of the answer to earlier ones.
Pass 3 — the sweep (about 15%). Handle the ones you still cannot solve: eliminate what you can, choose intelligently, and make sure no question is blank if there is no negative marking.
Most people fail objective exams in pass 1 by treating question 4 like it is worth ten marks. It is worth exactly the same as question 40.
Rule 2: Know your marks-per-minute before you enter
Do the arithmetic before the exam, not inside it.
| Exam | Questions | Time | Seconds per question |
|---|---|---|---|
| JAMB (per subject) | 40–50 | ~30 min | ~36–45 |
| Typical school CBT | 50 | 45 min | ~54 |
| Departmental objective test | 30 | 30 min | 60 |
Then set checkpoints. In a 50-question, 45-minute paper, I want to be at question 25 by minute 20. If I am at 14, I know immediately that I am over-thinking and I speed up. Without checkpoints you only discover the problem when it is too late to fix.
Rule 3: Read the question, then predict before you look
Read the stem carefully, and before your eyes touch the options, answer it in your head.
Why this matters: examiners write wrong options to look attractive. If you read the options first, one of them will hijack your thinking. If you already have your own answer, you are just searching for a match — and you become almost immune to the traps.
Then watch for the words that flip meaning: not, except, least, incorrect, always, never, only, best. Underline them on paper, or say them twice in your head on a CBT. Half of all "careless mistakes" are one of those words missed.
Rule 4: Eliminate properly
When you do not know the answer, do not guess blindly. Reduce first.
- Remove absolutes. Options with "always" or "never" are frequently wrong in science and social science.
- Remove the too-short and the odd one out. Examiners write the correct option carefully; it is often the most precise, most qualified one.
- Two options are near-identical? The answer is usually one of them — the difference between them is what the question is really testing.
- Grammar mismatch. In some tests the wrong options do not fit the stem grammatically. Free clue.
- Units and magnitude. In calculations, check units. An answer in the wrong unit or off by a factor of 1000 is a distractor for people who dropped a conversion.
Moving from four options to two takes your blind guess from 25% to 50%. Across ten hard questions, that is easily two or three extra marks.
Rule 5: Handle calculations like a professional
- Estimate first. If the options are 2.4, 24, 240, 2400, rough magnitude alone can decide it.
- Work backwards from options when the algebra is heavy — substitute and test.
- Write the formula down before plugging numbers. Most calculation errors are formula errors, not arithmetic errors.
- Watch the units in the question versus the units in the options. Grams to kilograms has ended many dreams.
- Never redo a whole calculation in pass 1. Flag and move.
Rule 6: CBT-specific habits
Computer-based tests have their own traps, and JAMB CBT punishes people who never practised on a screen.
- Practise on a computer or phone with a timer, not only on paper. Reading on screen is a different skill.
- Learn the interface: how to flag, how to jump to a question number, where the timer sits.
- Use the review screen at the end to confirm nothing is unanswered.
- Do not press submit early to look confident. Use every minute.
- If the system freezes, raise your hand immediately. Do not wait and hope.
- Keep your rough work organised on the provided sheet, numbered by question, so pass 2 does not restart from zero.
Rule 7: Change answers only for a reason
Your first instinct is right more often than not — but only when it came from knowledge. Change an answer when you find a concrete reason: you misread a word, you spotted a unit error, a later question clarified the concept. Do not change because of a vague feeling in the last two minutes. That is how confident marks turn into losses.
Rule 8: Prepare with past questions the right way
The exam is a skill. Train the skill, not just the syllabus.
- Do past questions timed, from week one, even when you feel unready.
- Mark them yourself and keep an error log: the question, why you missed it, and the correct reasoning.
- Sort your errors into three types — did not know, misread, ran out of time. Each type has a different fix. Knowledge gaps mean more reading; misreads mean slowing down on the stem; timing means more three-pass practice.
- Once a week, do a full mock in one sitting, no pausing, no peeping. Exam stamina is physical.
The error log is where the real marks come from. Most students do past questions and never revisit what they got wrong, which is like sweeping a room and leaving the dirt in the corner.
Rule 9: Manage your body and your head
Sleep the night before — a tired brain misreads "except". Eat something light. Get to the centre early enough that transport wahala cannot rattle you. If panic rises mid-exam, put the pen down, take four slow breaths, and go answer a question you know. Confidence returns through action, not through sitting and worrying.
The short version
Three passes. Checkpoints on the clock. Predict before looking at options. Underline the flip words. Eliminate to two. Leave nothing blank. Keep an error log while you prepare.
Knowledge gets you into the room. Technique is what carries it out onto the score sheet.
What is your usual mistake in objective exams — not knowing enough, or not finishing in time?
