Multiple choice

Multiple choice questions provide players with a list of possible answers, one of which is correct.

It should be noted that good questions may limit the answer space to a finite number of answers. For example, a question with the phrase "this U.S. President" narrows down the number of possible correct answers to 46. Nevertheless, because the player is not given a list of possible answers to choose from, such scope-narrowing phrases do not make a question multiple choice.

Because they allow for a team with zero knowledge to earn points simply by guessing, multiple choice questions are generally considered a part of bad quizbowl. This is especially true for multiple-choice tossups due to the lack of pyramidality.

Formats that use multiple choice questions

Televised

• CBI
• Bay Area Quiz Kids during the spring 2013 season (Season 14), for all tossups in the "Three-for-all" rounds
• WRAL Brain Game
• It's Academic (often during the team rounds, and generally the science questions in both the fourth round and the grab bag are multiple choice)
• High School Quiz Show (WGBH Boston)
• Challenge (New York metropolitan area)

Other

• Questions Unlimited
• Commissioner's Academic Challenge (and formerly NTAE/Panasonic Academic Challenge)
• National Science Bowl
• National Ocean Sciences Bowl

Formats that no longer use multiple choice questions regularly

• IHSA (multiple choice is allowed for analogy vocabulary questions only, which have not appeared for at least a decade)
• NAQT ("X, Y, both, or neither", deprecated)