"multiple-choice? that's easy!"

[rone]

flapsy wrote elsewhere:

It is a nonsense-words test on which you are supposed to be able to get 100% by "knowing some of the pitfalls of test construction".

[I have a multiple-times-forwarded copy, which several forwards ago includes mention that "I got this test from Joseph Kruskal (Bell Labs), who got it from Clyde Kruskal (NYU Courant Institute), who got it from Jerome Berkowitz (Courant Institute). Unfortunately, Prof. Berkowitz is currently out of town, so I cannot trace its origin any farther back." And btw that's dated 1981.]

Dubious formatting is not mine.

[Poll #1752594]

Comments

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

It's been too long since I got truly thonced. That needs to happen soon.

(I love these words!!)

[mistressdeath.livejournal.com]

When are you going to tell us the "right anwers?"

[mistressdeath.livejournal.com]

I mean, "answers!"

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I've already harassed flapsy about it, because he promised he'd have them.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

I found an article on it. The right answers are pretty obvious if you know what the test is actually testing.

[nothings.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I googled one up, and some of the arguments are terrible. But who knows if they're the right arguments.

But "vost", which I see has pretty universal response here, is a pretty good example. Nominally, the test should appear to be a real (possibly flawed) test which somehow you can decipher the correct answer to even with all the meaningful words replaced. However, some questions seem to go down the path of "well, if this question can be solved without reference to the actual content, then the only answer that works is (x)", but that's more of a Smullyan logic puzzle than suiting the original premise. (E.g. "vost" appears in all four choices, so we know a priori that vost must always be present. This doesn't mean that one of the other things isn't always present, though, so it doesn't justify picking the vost-only answer; in fact, it really gives us no more question-resolving-power than if it weren't in all the options. Now, if it were only in 3 of the 4 answers...)

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

"Vost" is also correct because it's the answer that's different from the rest. The same reason that #2 is (b) ("the viskal flans, if the viskal is donwil or zortil".)

Also, if the answer to the last question is (d), then the answer pattern for the whole test is abcdabcd. Remember, it's a quiz about badly-written tests.

[nothings.livejournal.com]

It was not told to me it was a quiz about badly-written tests. The phrase "knowing some of the pitfalls of test construction" can be interpreted several ways.

So another perfectly logical argument is that obviously "vost" is incorrect because it is too different from the rest. E.g. there's a model of test construction where you start with the right answer and generate some alternate answers, and you try to make some answers close to the right answer and some further from it, and this leads to an entirely different set of answers from the model of "the question mentions 'foo', so it must be the answer containing 'foo'". (Which is why if "vost" were in three of the answers, you could eliminate the one without vost.)

I thought ...

[freelikebeer.livejournal.com]

more simply that vost is the answer because it is universal amongst the answers. Must always be true in the consequent.

[waider.livejournal.com]

Two mentions of articles and NO LINKS. Seriously, people.

Of Course...

[freelikebeer.livejournal.com]

Now that I submitted my answers I want to change a couple of them.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You can click on the poll link and resubmit via the "Fill Out Poll" link.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Goddam it, you traitor, the gostak distims the doshes!!!

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

My father was mintered by a fribbled breg, you insensitive clod!

[loosestrife.livejournal.com]

According to this document on test creation (http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/health/ltu/areas/assessment/mcq/design.html) from Leeds Metropolitan University, the answers are 1-a, 2-b, 3-c, 4-d, 5-a, 6-b, 7-c, 8-d.

I'm not happy about the first one. Generally, you'd expect the compound word to refer to the thing-remover, not the thing. You don't pry off a tire iron with a tire.

such

[(Anonymous)]

Try thinking more along the lines of tape loops