It was said that in the USA a multiple choice maths question was answered by 
over 100,000 examinees of whom only one had the temerity to point out that 
all the answers were wrong.  The question was as follows:
    "A circle of radius 1cm rolls round the outside a circle of 3cm.  The 
point A is the initial point of contact of the two circles.  How many 
revolutions does the smaller circle make before it returns to point A?  2? 
3? 4.5?  6?"

A Cambridge statistical examiner was criticised for asking candidates to 
prove that both the sum and the difference of  two Poisson variables has the 
Poisson distribution.  This time the bolder entrants did comment that 
Poisson variables cannot be negative.

Gavin Ross

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ted Harding" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 8:22 AM
Subject: Oh those exam questions!


> Greetings All!
> Perhaps a bit off-topic for us, but I reckon it's a
> good place to ask the question.
>
> I've been repeatedly hearing/seeing teasing news items
> about the "unanswerable" AS-level exam questions set by
> different exam boards:
>
>  A maths question which was impossible to answer
>  because not enough information was given (OCR)
>
>  A business studies question which did not give enough
>  information (AQA)
>
>  A multiple-choice biology question which gave several
>  possible answers but not the correct one (Edexcel)
>
> (descriptions quoted from the BBC News website).
>
> I say "teasing" because I'd love to know the details of
> these questions, just to see how "goofy" they really are.
> But nowhere have I come across citations of the actual
> questions themselves, nor any detail much more specific
> than the above.
>
> So can anyone provide full citations, or pointers to where
> they can be found?
>
> My interest is aroused because I've set (and seen) a good
> few exam questions in my time, and therefore have an eye
> for the "warning signs" of a dodgy question. I'd like to
> be able to see how blatant these were in the above cases!
>
> With thanks, and best wishes to all.
> And apologies if I have set an unanswerable question.
>
> Ted.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> Date: 09-Jun-11                                       Time: 08:21:58
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