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| A Math Question | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 31 2011, 05:28 PM (639 Views) | |
| Aqua Letifer | Oct 31 2011, 05:28 PM Post #1 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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Welllllll.... what say you? |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| Mikhailoh | Oct 31 2011, 05:34 PM Post #2 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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100%. I am a multiple choice god. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| Horace | Oct 31 2011, 05:48 PM Post #3 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Haha deep. ![]() When you start thinking about it, the answer from the perspective of the answerer ceases to be random, and the question becomes incoherent - the answerer breaks the stated assumption as soon as they try to figure out what the answer is. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| jon-nyc | Oct 31 2011, 05:49 PM Post #4 |
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Cheers
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Ontologically random or merely epistemically so? |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Oct 31 2011, 05:51 PM Post #5 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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That's one part of this, yes. ![]() Another part: can you pick more than one answer? All sorts of stupid **** in this one. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| kathyk | Oct 31 2011, 05:51 PM Post #6 |
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Pisa-Carp
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I'm not sure what episiotomies have to do with it. Ouch! But, is there a real answer to this? I've never taken statistics, so I'm at a statistically proven disadvantage. If the answer is random, then there is a 25% chance of any given answer, right? So, if I'm guessing what the random answer is going to be, I don't see how my chances of being right can be more than 25%. I would think it would be less. Edited by kathyk, Oct 31 2011, 05:55 PM.
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| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Oct 31 2011, 05:52 PM Post #7 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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Hint: This question was posed on a Thursday. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| Dan | Oct 31 2011, 06:35 PM Post #8 |
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Senior Carp
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Me thinks the odds of me getting the right answer are 50%. Each answer has a 25% chance of being randomly selected. BUT, answers A and D are both "25%", so I would choose A or D as my answer, and I should have a 2 in 4 chance of getting it right. |
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| ivorythumper | Oct 31 2011, 06:41 PM Post #9 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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I thought about that, but then wouldn't you have to pick B to be correct?
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| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Dan | Oct 31 2011, 06:48 PM Post #10 |
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Senior Carp
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No, don't think so. The question is "What are the odds that you'll get the answer right". Not that a random answer will be right, but the MY answer will be right. So, I think that my odds of being right are 50%, and that I get those odds by selecting A or D. |
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| Horace | Oct 31 2011, 06:49 PM Post #11 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I see all the rest of the stupid **** as red herrings rather than equal parts of the answer. I went through a few of them before I realized the fundamental paradox of an answer which is simultaneously random and logically deducible. Nothing can be both. It's similar to a poll which asks the question "which answer won't you provide?". |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Dan | Oct 31 2011, 06:56 PM Post #12 |
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Senior Carp
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The answer is random, and it is logically deducible. My choice is not just allowed but dictated by the structure of the question. Since the answer is random, then any of the 4 choices could be the answer, so any one choice has a 25% chance of being selected. BUT, my choice is dictated by logic. Since any answer has a 25% chance of being selected, and since answers A & D are both the same, then selecting either of those two as my answer gives me a 50% chance of being right. (I think... )
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| garrett2 | Oct 31 2011, 07:04 PM Post #13 |
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Junior Carp
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I vote "none of the above". |
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| Copper | Oct 31 2011, 07:08 PM Post #14 |
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Shortstop
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Is one of the choices the right answer? |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| Horace | Oct 31 2011, 07:11 PM Post #15 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I think you'd have to define "random" and "correct", etc. By some definitions of "random", there'd be a zero chance that any provided answer is correct - it is not stated anywhere that the correct answer is included in the given choices. By other definitions of "random", there'd be a 50% chance of 25% since it appears twice. By still another there'd be an equal chance of any of the three unique choices given, being the "correct" one. If you decide that the statistical implication of the "correct" answer must hold while at the same time the correct answer was genuinely random in the first place, the question becomes as incoherent as "which answer will you not provide?". If one wanted to write a computer program to generate the "correct answer" and compare given answers to it, one would have to cut through all that sort of ambiguity and make decisions about definitions that aren't specifically implied by the poll as worded. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Dan | Oct 31 2011, 07:26 PM Post #16 |
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Senior Carp
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Ah, but the question is NOT "which of these 4 choices is the correct answer". Instead it is "what are the odds that you'll get this multiple choice question right?", given that the answer is randomly selected. Consider rewording the answers. Instead of A) 25%, B) 50%, C) 66.67% and D) 25% what if the question were identical, but the 'answers' were A) apple, B) orange, C) banana, and D) apple. In that case would you decide that your chances of getting the right answer were 50% if you chose A or D? I think yes, you would decide that. And to make this even more confusing, I'm beginning to think that IT had it right. I know I can get a 50% chance of being right if I select A or D. So, MY ODDS of getting the right answer are 50%, which might mean I need to select 'B' in order to get the scantron grading to mark my choice as correct. Aqua, I hope you didn't just make this thing up and that you have some 'authoritative' source to reference for the answer! |
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| Horace | Oct 31 2011, 07:34 PM Post #17 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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But that rewording isn't the same since there's no information content in fruit - there's no provable implication given in the answer that can be cross-checked for "accuracy". Consider if the answers were "1%", ".5%", ".75%", and "1%". That's incoherent because no matter what answer you give, you'd either be "correct" nominally by some proprietary non-mathematical definition of "correct" or the question means nothing and there is no correct answer. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Oct 31 2011, 07:37 PM Post #18 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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No, I didn't make it up but unfortunately I don't have a source for the correct answer, either. I think it depends on a couple of things, and primary among them, how the wording of the question is interpreted as you said. So, the debate continues! |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| kenny | Oct 31 2011, 07:47 PM Post #19 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Fun question! It makes the brain buzzzzzz. I guessed 66.7, but then that is only one of 4 answers so it would be 25, but there are two 25s so 50 is correct, but then 3 are correct so it's 66.7 . . . on and on... |
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| Moonbat | Oct 31 2011, 07:49 PM Post #20 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Count me in with Horace, the question breaks down. Supposing that one of the options is the correct answer results in inconsistency, both because each individual answer contradicts itself (e.g. if 25% is the right answer then the odds of getting it are 50% which is not 25%) and because if there is a correct answer to the question then the answer is not chosen randomly. If you assume a monkey picks randomly between A, B, C, D to generate the correct answer then the correct answer is A or D and again we've reached inconsistency. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Dan | Oct 31 2011, 07:50 PM Post #21 |
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Senior Carp
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Yes, I can follow your logic. And it is certainly a defensible position. OTOH, a couple of scenarios: First scenario, you came across that question during an SAT / ACT test. In that environment, you know that a scantron will do the grading. You know you have to choose A,B,C or D. Which do you choose? (I'd go with B, 'cause I'm drinking the IT Kool-aid). Second, you get that question on a test in your math class. You get to write down your answer, and an explanation for the teacher to look at and grade. What would you write down? In this scenario, I think either your explanation (there's no correct answer) or mine (50% if I choose A or D) would likely get full marks. |
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| Dan | Oct 31 2011, 07:52 PM Post #22 |
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Senior Carp
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And now Kenny shows up with a new Kool-aid flavor... |
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| Horace | Oct 31 2011, 08:00 PM Post #23 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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It's not unheard of for "what was the person thinking when they wrote the question?" sorts of questions to appear on such tests, but in that case I'd have to take into account who wrote the question and the context in which they wrote it. I would hope never to see such a question on an SAT type test, but if I did, I'd disregard the most complex ambiguities and try to find a simple relatively coherent way to interpret it. In the case of this question, I can't see any simple relatively coherent way to interpret it, but since 25% appears twice I'd try to fit that into my answer - I'd guess that was the part that they were trying to be clever about, and might answer 50. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Dan | Oct 31 2011, 08:07 PM Post #24 |
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Senior Carp
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Here's the question: "Assuming that the answer is entirely random, what are the odds that you'll get this multiple choice question right?" Given that question, I think we all agree that the chances that the randomly selected answer is A, B, C or D is 25% each. This is the "Assuming that the answer is entirely random" portion of the question. The next part of the question "what are the odds that you'll get this multiple choice question right?" This is where the question becomes ambiguous. And since I'm getting a fuzzy head I'm going to punt and hit the sack I think. |
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| jgoo | Oct 31 2011, 11:34 PM Post #25 |
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Administrator
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For four possible choices, should be 1/4 or 25% chance. However two answers are the same, making in reality only three possible choices for a 1/3 or 33.33%, which is not listed. Hmmmmm..... |
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