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He has trouble reading, Craig. That'll slow you down faster than anything. If he's getting 95% in the written and maths sections, he can understand the work. It's just that when it comes to reading multiple choice questions, his mind is wandering because he's having trouble associating the sequence of the answers with the questions he's been given. That's a problem with specific word association and comprehension. It's a form of dyslexia. If he has time to think about a question and write a lengthy reply to it, he has no trouble. But when he has to rapid fire answers given multiple choices, he can't make sense of it. I had a friend at school who was exactly the same. He had no trouble with the written section of any exam, but when it came to multiple choice, he just didn't cut the mustard. The written sections allowed him time to think about the questions and use his knowledge/understanding of the work to answer them, but he always felt pressured when it came to the multiple choice questions
Multiple choice questions are less about understanding than they are about rote learning. If you look at a sequence of multiple choice sections in years of exams, you'll find that in most cases, many of the questions repeat themselves in various guises. If you're smart, you can pick this and plan appropriately for answering the questions in the exams you do. Even if you don't know the work as well as you think, if you've followed the formula most lecturers stick to, you can get an average pass mark in most multiple choice sections of any exam. Unless you're totally hopeless or really haven't bothered to do some study, you won't necessarily fail. However, if you do understand your work well, you'll do better in the questions than you would otherwise.
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