• Anas@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    C; the question has two identical answers, it gets removed from the test based on that error

  • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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    7 days ago

    I would answer C) 0% - Ultimately I feel this isn’t a “pick the correct answer” type of test and more of a “pick the best answer” type of test.

    My reasoning is there are really two questions - one is being answered at random, the other I am answering. The one being answered at random is making any answer it chooses wrong - If it picks A or D (25%), then the correct answer is B (50%). If it picks B (50%), then the answer is either A or D (25%). If it chooses C (0%) then the correct answer is A or D (25%) again. No matter which one is chosen at random, it becomes wrong as soon as it is chosen. So then back to the question on the test that I am answering, the correct answer is C) 0%.

    Also, if the teacher marks that wrong, then I am even more correct.

    • dogdeanafternoon@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      It’s definitely B ) 50%. Ignoring the values for answers, there can only be 1 “correct” answer. If you have 4 options and 1 can be correct, a random guess is 25%. Since there are 2 options for 25%, you have a 50% chance of guessing the correct 25%.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      You can’t separate the question like that. Whichever answer you circle indicates your assertion that this is the probability of getting the correct answer by uniform random chance.

      This means that any answer you circle is wrong, and so the correct answer is to not circle any of them. You could even write e) none of the above to indicate that you have deliberately chosen not to circle one of them instead of skipping the question.

      I have had plenty of exams with multiple choice questions that included the possibility of no correct answers, one correct answer, or even multiple correct answers, and we were expected to make that judgement (rather than blindly follow instructions).

      • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        The answer is 0%: no matter what you chose, it’s wrong. Therefore, at random, you have 0% chance of picking the right answer randomly (or not).

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          If your chance of getting the right answer is 0%, then the right answer is © 0%, giving you a 1/4 or 25% chance of being correct, thus the answer cannot be 0%.

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          They’re called multi-select questions and you’re warned about them by the professor ahead of time. Sometimes they have a “none of the above” option but sometimes they don’t.

          The purpose is to get you to think critically. If you look at a question and all of the options seem wrong to you, making a guess because “one of them has to be right, it’s multiple choice” is lazy thinking and has nothing to do with the subject matter. In real life you don’t have the luxury of knowing that there’s one correct answer among a set of options.

          The purpose of an exam is to test your knowledge of the course subject, not to test your ability to take multiple choice tests. Sometimes that’s hard to separate out, but the standard multiple choice question (where one and only one answer must be correct) is very game-able by guessers who don’t know the subject very well and risks the possibility of someone getting very lucky while not knowing anything.

          • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Well, I suppose I fell into the trap of thinking that questions with no right answers meant nobody could get a perfect score, but I would imagine that 1) it’s fair across the board and 2) accounted for in the scoring somehow.

            I suppose I was always a fan of taking easy multiple choice tests as a student - some people write them such that by using the tiniest amount of logic, someone with zero knowledge of the subject could still probably ace them, versus someone writing a diabolical one that dives deep into the subject matter and has answers that are very very slightly different and you really do have to know the material strongly to have any hope. lol. But taking a diabolical test where some questions don’t have ANY correct answers would be even MORE satisfying to ace if you really do know the material well enough, so that sounds like fun. :)

  • Slashme@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    There is no correct answer. The reason why there’s no correct answer is that it’s a self-referential paradox, but imagine you saw this:

    What is 1+1?

    A) 9

    B) π

    C) 76

    D) Syria

    There’s no correct answer, so it’s not a valid multiple choice question.

  • alessandro@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    Can’t be 25% = it could be correct if the “other 25%” was 24 or 26 (or even 25.000001). Since there are two 25%, the 25% change is raised, nullify the 25% prediction. Can’t be 50%, because there are other two different options in addition to fifty in fifty-fifty; so 50% (or fifty-fifty) don’t exist as option.

    Can’t be 0%, because 0% is a very specific assertion that can’t ever be true due to paradox (if you “guessed”, you nailed it 100%)

    Result: malformed question, no one is valid… The best you can have is 25%, which is still wrong, but I thing is the closer to approximate. Ideally the question would reform as:

    Option A: 25% Option B: 50% Option C: 0%

    =33.3~%

    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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      5 days ago

      Answer can be a,b,c or d. So could be a or d. Pick one at random and you have a 50% chance.

  • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    Here’s a more fun one:

    If you pick an answer to this question at random, what is the chance that you will be correct? Mark at least one of the applicable options.

    (a) 20%

    (b) 6.25%

    (c) 0%

    (d) 20%

    And as another puzzle, what happens if you swap “at least one of the” for “all”?

  • Tidesphere@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    The answer is null because the question references information that we don’t have. It can’t be answered.

      • Tidesphere@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        The question asks “What is the likelihood that you will give the correct answer to this question?” But does not detail the question that it is asking.

        As a hypothetical, if I came up to you and said

        “What is the answer to my question?”

        There are a number of ways you could answer, such as saying “What question?” Or even just “I don’t know”. But the fact of the matter is that you cannot give a knowledgeable answer in earnest because the question I gave you is malformed and lacking information.

        Like, I get the point of the question pictures, it’s a very funny “haha look at this mathematical conundrum, isn’t that pretty funny guys?” And it’s a good question for that

        But I guess I’m just being a buzzkill by saying that technically none of these answers is correct because the premise of the question itself relies on a language error. Idk

        • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 days ago

          “This question” means “the current question being g asked” and trying to argue otherwise is just silly. The only way you could be confused in that is if you’re not a native English speaker (and if you’re not, fair enough). My point being, you are given the full question, the question being referenced, and the possible answers.

          It’s unanswerable not because of a language error, it’s because the second 25% makes it impossible to correctly answer as the answer is essentially a mathematical paradox. All answers are simultaneously correct and incorrect.

          • Tidesphere@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            I am a native English speaker with a very good comprehension of the language.

            So let’s walk through the logic then, follow me on this one.

            I walk up to you and ask

            “What is the answer to my question?”

            I claim you have been given full information as to what the question is, and you are able to knowingly answer it without saying “I don’t know” or “What question?”

            How do you answer?

            • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              5 days ago

              The question pictured is not “my question” it is “this question” you can’t change the language of the question then complain it means something it doesn’t.

              • Tidesphere@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                So, syntactically speaking “My” question vs “this” question doesn’t actually change anything about the example that I’m making. If making my example analogy closer to the question in the picture will help you understand the point, I can do that too, no worries.

                So, let us word it like this then

                “Is the answer to this question a bear, a moose, a lion, or a tiger?”

                The question fails before it reaches the stage where an answer is chosen, because the question is not formatted correctly. It is nonsensical to attempt to determine which of the four animals is the answer to the question, because the question is a nonsense question.

                In the same way, while it is a clever way to set up a question to imply a paradox, while it is a very fun way to contemplate how the answer might change given how the ‘correct’ answer changes based on which answer you choose; the reality of the situation is that the question actually fails before reaching the ‘choose an answer’ stage of the problem, because the self-referential language makes the question itself nonsensical.

                Is that clearer?

                • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  5 days ago

                  🤦‍♂️

                  You’re telling me that if the answer choices were 0%, 25%, 50% and 100% this question would be impossible to answer because it was formatted incorrectly?

  • MathiasTCK@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    C, if there is a requirement to show your work and random guesses that don’t show work get no credit.