AbstractSelecting the best assessment method for students in terms of validity and reliability is still a matter of debate among instructors. The written assessments are crucial in modern academic curricula and include multiple-choice questions and short answer questions that are currently important devices to measure students’ learning and achievement. Notably, multiple-choice question-based testing has an association with the assessment of lower order cognition in students, including the discrete facts’ recall and, therefore, many instructors are questioning their use in the university education. Both multiple-choice questions and short answer questions’ testing formats are widely used in the undergraduate education. However, the debate between researches continues as to which of these two different assessments is more effective and reliable, and whether there is a correlation between them. In this article, we will describe the features and limitations of multiple-choice questions and short answer questions’ testing formats and their positive and negative effects, and compare these two common assessment methods among biomedical/medical students.