Multiple Choice Widget

Use multiple choice when the learner should identify the best answer, select all that apply, or compare a visible set of options.

Settings to know

Open these options and grading controls from the ⚙ Configure button above a selected Multiple Choice widget. See Configuring a Multiple Choice Question.

• Options are the answer choices learners can select.
• Selection switches between Single (picking an option replaces the current choice) and Multi (each option toggles independently, so more than one can be selected at once).
• Randomize Order shuffles choices when the scene loads. It starts on. Turn it off when the order helps, like numbers smallest to largest: Keep number answers in order, shuffle the rest walks through both cases.

For each option, set the visible label, mark whether it is correct, and optionally add an image. An option with an image keeps its label too: students don't see it, but it's what a screen reader says for the picture, so describe the picture ("A red apple") rather than the answer ("Correct"). If you leave it blank, a screen reader says "Picture option 1", "Picture option 2" and so on — never the image's file name, which could give the answer away.

Shape choices

An option can be a shape that Berdee draws for you, instead of words or a picture. Use it for shape questions where the exact shape matters: "Which one is the same shape?", "Color the triangles", or "Which rectangle is longer?". A drawn shape is exact every time, so the same triangle smaller and turned really is the same triangle, which a generated picture can't promise.

Click the shapes button on an option to turn it into a shape, then set it up in the editor that opens:

• Kind: circle, oval, triangle, rectangle, square, rhombus, trapezoid, hexagon, or Custom for any number of corners.
• Corners: drag the dots on the grid to make a triangle skinny, wide or lopsided, or a rectangle long and thin. You can also click a corner and move it with the arrow keys. With Custom, Add corner and Remove corner change how many it has.
• Turn: turn the shape in 15° steps, or click Upside down. A turned copy is the same shape, just turned.
• Size: Small, Medium or Large. "The same shape, bigger" is exactly the same shape scaled up. Shapes are measured on the same grid in every option, so a rectangle you drew 10 squares long is twice as long as one drawn 5 squares long.
• Fill and Outline colors, or Outline only to match printed practice pages.
• Near-miss: a shape that looks almost right but isn't, the non-examples shape lessons are built on. Choose One curved side (a pizza slice), Rounded corners, Gap in one side (an open shape), Wavy side or Cut corner (one extra side). Next side or Next corner moves it around the shape.
• Description: what a screen reader says for the shape, and what the attempt page shows. By sides and corners (the default) says "a shape with 3 straight sides and 3 corners, upside down", so a question like "Which one is a triangle?" doesn't give the answer away. By name says "a triangle, upside down". My own words uses what you type in the option's name box, and typing there switches to it.
• Copy from: copy another option's shape, then resize or turn it. This is the quickest way to make "the same shape, smaller and turned".

Grading works exactly as for text options: the shape only changes how the option looks. An option is a picture or a shape, not both.

The Configure dialog warns you when two options are the same shape (only turned or resized) but one is marked correct and the other isn't, when a gap or cut corner is too small to see at the widget's size, and when an outline is too faint against its tile.

Shapes work the same way on matching cards and sorting list items, and as cards for a drop-bucket sort with the shape widget's exact shapes.

For a lesson built around shape choices, see the Is it a triangle? pattern. The tutorial Ask students to tap all the triangles builds one step by step: three triangles that don't look alike, three near-misses, and All Correct.

Arranging the options

There is nothing to set. The options arrange themselves to fit the widget, so you shape the question by resizing it on the canvas:

• Drag it wide and short to lay the options out in a single row — good for True/False or short one-word answers along the bottom of a scene. The tutorial Make a true-or-false question builds one, with a message that explains the answer and a first try that counts.
• Drag it tall and narrow to stack the options one per row — good for long answers that need a full line of text each.
• Leave it roughly square, or at its default size, to pack the options into a balanced block — four options become the familiar 2x2 quiz grid.

Adding or removing an option reflows the arrangement immediately, so you never end up with a stray empty column. Options with images or shapes pack into squarer cells automatically, so pictures aren't squeezed into letterbox slots.

A new Multiple Choice starts with answer text small enough that everyday answers like "Mercury" fit the 2x2 grid, even when it lands under a large heading: smart styling copies a heading's font and colors, never its size or bold. If you raise Font Size in Style & Layout, make the widget bigger too, so long words keep fitting their tiles.

Answers are also kept large enough to tap comfortably on a tablet. If stacking the options into rows would make them too small, they stay in a single row instead — so a short, wide question never turns into a grid of slivers.

When an answer doesn't fit its option

Font Size is the largest your answers will appear. If an answer is too long for its option at that size, every option's text shrinks together until all of them fit, so no answer looks different from the others. Long answers wrap onto more lines, but only between words: "Mercury" at a big size gets smaller, it never splits into "Mercur" and "y". What you see on the canvas is exactly what students see.

Text stops shrinking at 12px. If an answer still doesn't fit, it's cut short with "…" (a screen reader still reads the whole answer). When that happens, make the widget bigger, shorten the answer, or drag the widget into a shape with fewer options per row.

Showing correctness on the widget itself

In the Styling section, turn on Show correctness to mark each option correct or incorrect the moment the learner picks it, using the Correct and Incorrect colors you choose. This gives instant per-option feedback without needing a separate text widget or score reveal.

Read choices aloud

For children who can't read yet, each option can say itself before the child picks it. Turn it on in the Read choices aloud section of the ⚙ Configure dialog. It's off until you turn it on, in new questions too.

• Tap to hear, tap again to choose (the setting you get when you turn it on): the first tap on an option says it and marks it with a dashed outline. A second tap on the same option picks it. Tapping a different option says that one instead. There's no small target to aim for, which suits five-year-olds, and a stray tap can't answer by accident.
• Speaker on each choice: a speaker sits in each option's corner. Tapping the speaker says the option; tapping anywhere else picks it, as usual.
• Read all (on by default): a speaker button on the widget's top-right corner says every option in order, outlining each one as it's said. Any tap stops it.

Hearing an option never answers. Nothing is selected, no attempt is recorded, and On Wrong Selected doesn't run, so a child can listen to every option as often as they like.

What each option says. By default, an option says its label, and a shape option says "this one", so hearing it never names the shape. Under each option, Spoken words lets you say something else: "Four" for an option labelled "4", or "This one" for a picture whose label would give the answer away. Leave it blank to use the label. Say nothing keeps one option silent.

Whose voice. Voice is either the lesson's narration voice or the device's own voice. The narration voice is the lesson's voice, set in the studio's Settings, unless you pick another one for this question under Narration voice. With the narration voice, press Generate audio for all choices to make a short clip of every option in one go, the way a text to speech widget's Generate Audio works. A four-option numeral question uses under 30 of your plan's text-to-speech characters. On the Free plan the button shows an upgrade prompt, and the device's voice says the options instead, so the feature works on every plan. If you change an option's words or the voice after generating, that clip is out of date and the device's voice is used for it until you generate again. Publishing warns you (Choices Will Use the Device's Voice) but never stops you.

One voice at a time. An option speaking stops whatever else is playing, the scene's spoken instruction included, and starting the instruction again stops the option. Two voices never talk over each other.

Shuffle freely. Because each option says itself, your instruction no longer has to read the options in order ("One. Two. Three. Four."), and Randomize Order can stay on.

When to leave it off. If reading the words is the skill, such as sight words or color words, don't read the options in your instruction. A speaker the child chooses to tap can still be the right scaffold for practice; leave read-aloud off for a check of independent reading.

Keyboard and screen readers. Enter and Space always pick the highlighted option. Keyboard users press H to hear it. Screen readers already read every option's label, so nothing speaks on its own when an option is highlighted, and the speaker badges are hidden from them.

On the student's attempt page, the answer gets a line like "Heard 3 of 4 choices before answering", which helps you tell a reading problem from a math problem.

The tutorial Let pre-readers hear every answer choice builds a picture question with Tap to hear, a Read all button, short Spoken words and narration-voice audio, step by step.

Grading setup

Multiple choice supports grading. The grading controls are in the Scoring section of the ⚙ Configure dialog.

• Scoring (the On/Off switch at the top of the section) turns grading on or off for the question.
• The widget's name is the readable label for this answer in results and conditions. Rename it at the top of the properties panel — see Widgets and widget settings.
• Points sets how much the question is worth.
• While Scoring is on, the question counts toward both the scene score and the lesson score.
• Group lets you include the question in a custom grading group.
• Correct when decides what counts as right. It sits in Content, next to the checkmarks, and stays there with Scoring off, because Show correctness and the behaviors below still use your answer key:
• All Correct: every option you marked correct is picked, and nothing else.
• At least One is Correct: any one correct pick is enough, even alongside a wrong one.
• Exactly one, and it's correct: the learner picks a single option, and it's one you marked correct. Two picks are wrong even if one of them is right.

All Correct with Single selection and two or more options marked correct can never be answered right (one pick can't be all of them). With those settings, clicking an option's checkmark moves the mark to it, so you can't end up there by marking answers. You can by switching Selection or Correct when after marking several, which keeps every mark. The Configure dialog warns you, and publishing stops if a scene waits for that question's score before moving on.

Reacting to a pick

Use Behaviors to answer a pick the moment it happens. On Wrong Selected runs for every wrong option a learner picks, so each wrong guess gets your hint, not just the first one. Tapping the option that's already selected doesn't run it again. On All Correct Selected runs once, when the answer becomes right by your Correct when rule. With At least One is Correct, that is the first correct pick, not the moment every correct option is picked. It runs again only if the answer stops being right and then becomes right again. Details: Events, Actions, and Conditions.

How to set up the content

Write options so learners can compare them quickly. If images are part of the decision, attach an image to each option rather than forcing learners to cross-reference elsewhere on the scene.

Useful setting combinations

• A tall, narrow widget + one correct answer:

Best for standard checks for understanding, where each answer runs a full line.

• A wide, short widget + two options:

Best for True/False and other quick either-or checks.

• A square widget + image options:

Best for visual recognition tasks.

• Randomize Order on:

Best for practice and review where option position should not become a clue.

• Correct when set to all correct:

Best when learners must choose every valid answer.

• Correct when set to at least one correct:

Best when any one good example is enough for the task.

Strong use cases

• Concept checks with one correct answer.
• "Select all that apply" review questions. Step-by-step: Ask a "select all that apply" question with pictures.
• Visual identification using image choices.
• Ungraded predictions before a reveal: turn Scoring off, tick what really happens, and show the reveal's "you predicted it" line with an Is correct rule. Step-by-step: Ask students to predict before you reveal.

Great pairings with other widgets

• Pair multiple choice with image when learners identify a diagram or photo.
• For "how many fingers?", show the number on drawn hands with a **fingers** widget in Show mode beside numeral options. The hands are always exact, unlike a generated picture of a hand.
• Pair it with text for a written rationale after submission, or turn on Show correctness for instant per-option feedback without a separate widget.
• Pair it with score to create a quiz sequence.
• Pair it with button when you want manual submission instead of instant feedback.