Ambiguous test:

[narf poit chez BOOM]

same here. my first reaction was 'shot someone' not 'got shot'.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Thanks for the tip on the grammar; I am not sure how it [‘] worked its way over in the sentence. Their can not be a “right” or “wrong” answer, you have all brought up good points, but I wanted to test the correlation in a larger environment, as opposed to a classroom of students that shared a common history and culture. Sorry Fyron, but if they where grouped than that would invalidate the test as now you would have to pick a pair as opposed to choosing one, then choosing another. The very nature of human behavior should allow for some variance. Also remember that correlation does not equal causation. I don’t want to go into much detail or I may start tampering with the results of those who read the Posts before the test.

The professor in question did mention that “city” and “country” are also meant to be somewhat ambiguous, so if you consider suburbs city fine, if not still fine. I forgot to mention that in the test, I will edit it in now. There can be no right or wrong answer, just your honest opinion.

So far I am not surprised with the results, even factoring in free will (can that ever be factored) they fall right into lines with his prediction.

[ January 13, 2004, 21:04: Message edited by: President Elect Shang ]

[Fyron]

The problem is that his prediction is irrelevant given the posing of the questions, because the data is fundamentally flawed. Unless, of course, his prediction was simply that more people would come from "cities" and more people would choose "got shot." Any inference on the correlation between the answers to the two questions is based on a faulty foundation and is suspect.

[ January 13, 2004, 21:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Wardad]

Originally posted by SpaceBadger:
Grammar quibble: you have hunters' (plural possessive) rather than hunter's (single possessive) making it appear that more than one hunter was involved.

It is an odd quiz. ...

Right, The Hunter question can not be correctly answered by first answer. It does not gramatically fit or make sense, it is ambiguous.
The only unambiguous answer is the second one.

On the other hand, what if your emailing with a Japanese person writing English, or someone else who thinks in a different language? In such a situation you must interpert meanings from imperfect sentances and the ambiguity will have less importance. This would make answer one correct, pending verification.

[SpaceBadger]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
Sorry Fyron, but if they where grouped than that would invalidate the test as now you would have to pick a pair as opposed to choosing one, then choosing another. The very nature of human behavior should allow for some variance. Also remember that correlation does not equal causation. I don’t want to go into much detail or I may start tampering with the results of those who read the Posts before the test.

Well, I see your point that making the subject choose a pair might produce different results than choosing two answers independently, however I also agree with Fyron that any method that does not match up the answers into pairs is meaningless except as to proportion of subjects who consider themselves to be from the country or the city, and proportion of subjects who answer the second question one way or the other. I think it is a problem with the way the UBB polls work, that it won't let you tabulate any correlation such as a percentage that chose 1A & 2A, percentage that chose 1A & 2B, etc.

I suspect that when your professor did this he recorded the data in a manner that allowed such a correlation, else what would be the point?

SpaceBadger

edit: to clarify: The questions should be asked individually rather than in pairs, but the answers need to be correlated after the answering to gain any meaningful results. I don't think the UBB poll allows you to do this.

[ January 13, 2004, 22:54: Message edited by: SpaceBadger ]

[Baron Grazic]

I picked 'Country' 'Hunter got shot' even though the question would have been better if someone else got shot.
Even though most guns are illegal in Australia I grew up with guns on most of the farms near me to take care of any foxes or rabbits but I've never heard anyone call a missed shot 'tragic'. Perhaps if you had a bear or lion charging you, but then again I'm sure there would be more approiate words.

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
The problem is that his prediction is irrelevant given the posing of the questions, because the data is fundamentally flawed. Unless, of course, his prediction was simply that more people would come from "cities" and more people would choose "got shot." Any inference on the correlation between the answers to the two questions is based on a faulty foundation and is suspect.

well said.

But still an interesting concept non the less.