No. 127Psychology3 minviews 30
Published by GK Library Annex
Is your first answer on a test really the right one?
Answers changed after a second thought went right twice as often as wrong. So why do we remember it the other way around?
People often say changing your first answer on a multiple-choice test will cost you, but a study that looked at real exam papers found that changed answers went from wrong to right about twice as often as from right to wrong. We still trust our first instinct because the times we changed an answer and got it wrong stick in memory far longer.
Counting eraser marks
In a study published in 2005, researchers at the University of Illinois searched 1,561 midterm papers from an introductory psychology course for eraser marks and counted what happened to each changed answer. Of 3,291 changed answers, 51% went from wrong to right, 25% from right to wrong, and 23% from one wrong answer to another.
When 51 students from the same course were asked to guess the outcome beforehand, 75% said changes from right to wrong would be more common.
Changing to wrong hurts more
The researchers argued that this belief grows out of the regret of thinking, “I should have left it alone.” If your first answer was right and you changed it to a wrong one, it feels as if you threw away points with your own hand. But when you keep a wrong answer from start to finish, you just treat it as a question you didn't know and move on.
In follow-up experiments, students also said that changing a right answer to a wrong one felt more regrettable and frustrating and stayed in memory longer. Because only the painful moments stay vivid, it feels as if changing answers has cost you far more often than it really has.
Not a reason to change a lot
This result only shows an average. It doesn't mean that the more answers you change, the better. Changing an answer when you reread the question and clearly see a better choice is different from switching back and forth out of anxiety with no reason.
Your first instinct is useful too. On questions you know well, your first choice is often right, so there's no need to shake those answers again. What's unfortunate is leaving an answer alone even when you have a reason to change it, just because people say “your first answer is right.”
Try this when you review
Before you erase an answer, try saying in one sentence why another choice looks more correct. If you misread a condition such as “which is NOT correct,” or found a hint in another question, that's a good reason to change it.
If all you have is a vague uneasy feeling, it's better to just mark the question and move on. And if one question you changed and got wrong keeps coming back to you, remember that the ones you changed and got right may have been more numerous; they just left less of a mark in memory.
Related reads
On tests, changed answers went from wrong to right twice as often as the reverse. If you reread and have a clear reason, it's fine to change your answer.
Notes and references · Kruger, Wirtz & Miller (2005) · APA. Based on “Counterfactual Thinking and the First Instinct Fallacy” in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 88, and the American Psychological Association's Monitor coverage (2005). These results come from one course at one university, so the ratios may differ on other tests.
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