| name | distractor-generate |
| description | Generate plausible multiple-choice distractors tied to common misconceptions for an assessment item. Use this atom when assessment-designer needs realistic wrong answer choices. Do NOT use for generating the item stem — that is atom-assessment-item. Do NOT use for open-response items. |
distractor-generate
Creates plausible wrong-answer choices (distractors) for MC items, each linked to a documented misconception. Used after atom-assessment-item and atom-misconception to make MC items diagnostic, not just tricky.
Input
{
"item_stem": "What is 3/4 + 1/2?",
"correct_answer": "5/4 or 1 1/4",
"grade": "4",
"subject": "Math",
"misconceptions": ["adds numerators and denominators separately", "converts to decimals incorrectly"]
}
Output
{
"tool": "distractor-generate",
"distractors": [
{"choice": "4/6", "misconception": "adds numerators and denominators separately (3+1)/(4+2)"},
{"choice": "1.0", "misconception": "converts to decimals incorrectly: 0.75 + 0.5 rounded down"},
{"choice": "3/8", "misconception": "multiplies instead of adding"}
],
"human_review_required": true
}
Do NOT use this atom for
- Generating the item stem or correct answer (use atom-assessment-item)
- Open-response or constructed-response items (distractors are for MC only)
- Diagnosing individual student errors
Pipeline note
Follows references/method.md at the Generation step (distractor creation). Output conforms to protocol-layer/metadata-schema.md. human_review_required: true — distractors must be plausible but clearly wrong; teacher review prevents ambiguous options.
