--- William Thurston <wpthurston@mac.com> wrote:
I thought I'd add a little more raw material from the exam. I'd attach the PDF version if it were allowed, but instead I'll just type in a couple more questions:
14. If the expression 3 - 4^2 + 6/2 is evaluated, what would be done last? (1) subtracting, (2) squaring, (3) adding, (4) dividing
I guess it's easy for us to guess what they want --- but it seems silly, and also it assumes you disregard the commutative rule for addition. It's significant for compilers to analyze computations and do them in efficient, rather than most obvious orders.
This could be fixed up if the test question design process were to bring in feedback from outside the exam committee.
20. How many different five-member teams can be made from a group of
eight students, if each student has an equal chance of being chosen? (1) 40 (2) 56 (3) 336 (4) 6720
I think the correct answer is not among these choices: 1 It's very poorly phrased, being neither colloquial English or typical mathematical/combinatorial English.
What interpretation yields the answer 1? This looks like a perfectly clear question to me, and the extra irrelevant probability information doesn't affect the result.
21. The student scores on Mrs. Frederick's mathematics test are shown
on the stem and leaf plot below: 4 | 3 6 | 0 5 5 7 9 7 | 2 5 6 8 9 9 9 9 | 0 1 2 5 9
Find the median of these scores.
--this is a new one for me. I'm clueless, even seeing the key, which I'm not printing.
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