Selecting 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.