Thread: Trick question?
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Old Sun Mar 16, 2003, 06:26pm
ronald ronald is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 746
Cool

Actually, Mike you bring up a good point and it reveals one of the problems with teaching and learning true false questions in school. We are not given the option of does not say or not enough information is provided.

I trained military linguists who had a test where the answer to a question based on information in a paragraph or from a tape was True, false or doesn't say. The correct answer for the military people for the ASA question would be doesn't say. Some of them had the darndest time with those questions. They eventually did away with that section of the test. Not enough logical thinkers.

For example, say you have a group of people in a room and Johnny goes into the room, scans the people, comes out and says: Some of the people are men. Many people would say that it is true that some of the people (meaning the other some) are women. It's indeterminate. We have no way of knowing whether they are or are not women until we take a look. Same thing goes with Coach requested time. Did he get it or not? Until you tell me, I have no way of knowing and some people realize this and have a hard time with this type of question.

I know that in basketball if a coach requests time he is going to be granted a time out even if I know he has zero left. So, in this case, I can see how the request will be followed by the granting. I would hesistate just a little and realize what is being tested on that question. I just do not like the wording but I can live with it.
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