Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The Ultimate Bad Homework Question Thread!

I am with Val, it is equally likely - compare the chances that the marble is red 9/18 with chances that it isn't red 9/18. Red versus non-red are equally likely.

It is a badly written question, IMO.

Yes, and (says my snarky, over-thinking mind) they never said those were all the marbles in the bag, either.

As a child, given that question, I would probably have written:

(e)50/50*

*assuming there are no other marbles in the bag other than the ones mentioned.

I think several of you protest too much. For someone who understands the maths one, and only one, of those answers is reasonable. Maybe over-thinking it is in some way fun, but I'd be concerned if my, or any, child couldn't actually pick the right answer easily.

Well it is most likely to be red, 9/18 vs 5/18 and 4/18. But it is equally likely to be red or not red. I don't think the question was that clear but then I tend to overthink things. The barometer question is just silly.

The barometer question is an obvious typo, again, not worth wasting energy on!

[ETA Why yes, I might be feeling grumpy because I've spent too much of my life writing exam questions lately and know just how hard it is to write lots of them in limited time so that no smart alec can possibly claim there's a problem with them, especially given that making the questions too wordy throws students far more often than leaving over-thinking loopholes does...]

How is comparing the chances of it being red with the chances of it not being red over thinking?

None of the options there are correct - perhaps one is reasonable if the question is rethought into 'which color marble is must likely to be drawn' but absolutely not as the question was asked.

BTW, please tell me if I am wrong about the chances of it being red versus non-red being even.

Sure "most likely" is correct, for one obvious and reasonable interpretation of the question. Taking the offered answers to a multiple choice question into account when deciding how to interpret the question seems like a reasonable expectation to me.

Copying the question in:
Note that it doesn't ask for the "probability" (technical term) it asks for the "likelihood" (colloquial term). Seems to me perfectly reasonable to interpret this as "... compared to the likelihood that he will pick a blue marble, and to the likelihood that he will pick a black marble". You have to interpret it as compared to something to make the answers make sense, and while the concepts "blue" and "black" appear in the question explicitly, the concept "not red" does not.

If "equally likely" had been one of the options, I might have agreed that it was a bad question (but I'd still expect most students to get it right). Given that it wasn't, I really think a student who gets this wrong deserves to lose a mark.

Was anyone's child confused by this to the extent that they couldn't give the correct answer, really, honestly?




You're correct there of course.

We are just going to have to agree to disagree here, ColinsMum.

As far as I am concerned the answer to the question as stated (not interpreted with any assumptions reasonable or otherwise) was not an option provided.

I agree with ColinsMum. It's not the world's greatest question. But I've seen worse!

That's the problem with the question. It's open to interpretation. A math question in lower elementary school shouldn't be open to interpretation, and no student, regardless of age, should have to read the exam writer's mind in order to understand what's being asked.

It didn't say "likelihood of picking red versus blue OR black." In that case, red would be most likely. It just said the likelihood of picking red. To me, this is pretty clear: it means "red" or "not red," which is equally likely. But that's the problem. The other interpretation is equally clear to other people. So it's a bad question.

This a just one of many problems with multiple choice questions. If the question had been open-ended, the student could explain the answer and the teacher could see that there were two possible interpretations. Multiple choice questions don't allow for this process. IMO, they can be written more for the convenience of the person grading them than they are to measure what the student actually knows. Essay, short answer, and other similar types of questions ask students to synthesize information and allow them to explain answers. MC questions don't, and again, they don't reflect the kind of thinking required in the workplace.