SAT question of the day
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Trevortni wrote:
You really are a Grade A moron, aren't you?
:(( :confused: Nope. A member of both Mensa and of Intertel (look it up here Intertel[^]). Anyhow, this is the lounge, so get a little less serious, okay?
Trevortni wrote:
the only person I see making that mistake is you (correct me if I'm wrong - I may have overlooked something).
Well, you're wrong, and that was the WHOLE POINT of the thread that Marc started.
Marc Clifton wrote:
it stumped me because I view the concept of "parts" to be abstract,
Trevortni wrote:
A part is a perfectly valid unit of measure
On what planet? Can you covert them to metric?
Trevortni wrote:
Your original question was: how many *PARTS* of yellow dye are in the whole.
And your answer is 26/75!? That's just plain wrong. I didn't ask for a ratio. In my book, the number of *PARTS* is always greater than one. In fact, using your logic, the answer is 26, not some fraction less than one. 26 PARTS of yellow, 49 PARTS of something else. Look at it another way. I have a box, and in the box are 5 orange slices (parts) and 3 lime slices (parts). How many orange parts are in the (whole) box. The answer is 5, NOT 5/8.
Trevortni wrote:
They are exactly the same number
Validating my statement that there are multiple *right* answers, and contradicting yourself. Um, square root of 2 maybe? You totally missed the original posting. "Parts" is an arbitrary thing. Yes, one can make certain assumptions, but is it the right assumption? Good system design removes ALL ambiguities, and this is where Marc was coming from, I believe. Fire missile at any foreign object coming over the horizon. Nice, clear, and concise. Oops, I didn't mean the Moon. Lighten up now. :rose:
Gary
OK, so I wasn't going to reply to this, but the assumption that being a member of MENSA (oooh!) makes you somehow not be an idiot..... that was just to rich to pass up making a wry comment about. Mensa only makes you elitist. And somebody who is elitist can still be just as dead wrong as anybody else.... they just refuse to admit it when they are. I think I'll skip most of the rest of your sorry responses, and just point out two major flaws in what you're babbling about: Stating that two numbers are the same number is not in any conceivable way saying that there are multiple right answers. You are trying to prove that there are multiple right answers by showing multiple expressions of the SAME right answer. This is nonsense which you are attempting to use to confuse your audience (and I stand by my hope that it is only your audience that you are trying to confuse, and not yourself). And finally, you claim that this system has ambiguities, and that was the whole point of the discussion that Marc started. Yes, that was the conversation that Marc started. Then people who had a better grasp of mathematics and English than he did took it upon themselves to correct his mistakes. Then other people who want to confuse the matter, such as yourself, have taken it upon themselves to rail against the establishment, presumably because decrying something that is very useful (and, I might add, a lot more thoroughly tested than any truly useful and well-written software I've come across) makes you feel better about your laziness that prevents you from grasping the really simple concepts. Or maybe you weren't hugged enough as a kid? But this system really contains no contradictions, and as I have pointed out (though I suppose maybe it just wasn't clear enough? Maybe I'll have to write a textbook about this trivial matter) what you call assumptions were CLEARLY STATED in the question. Now please stop confusing the kiddies. It doesn't help them out, and it makes you look like a Grade A moron.
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OK, you are just yanking my chain here, right? You did look at the start of that sub-discussion that posed the question that this answer was actually for? Right? Riiiiiiight? Please tell me you're not really this stupid.
open to doubt now? aim achieved then. :|
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
This month's tips: - before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google; - the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get; - use PRE tags to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets.
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While I agree they are words most of your exceptions are due to puting a prefix or a postfix on the root word. Naturally any verb that begins in an i can form a "ei" combo by adding a re- in front, or one that ends in a e with an -ing. The others though a amusing none the less. Also alot/most you'll note were borrowed from french or german, I challenge you to repeat said joke only using words derived from old english. ;P P.S. why did the US decide on math and vocab as the standard for college admissions anyways? Say your planning on doing pure math. Sure your math scores should be through the roof, but your need for vocab is limited as you need a small subset of vocab to be able to do your job.
"I challenge you to repeat said joke only using words derived from old english" Just how old do you want the English to be? If I remember my history correctly (I may not, if so someone please correct me!), the English were repeatedly invaded by Saxons (hence Anglo-Saxon), Vikings, and Normans. Indeed, after the Norman invasion of 1066 (that's nearly 1000 years ago now), French was, for a while, the official language used in any treaties etc. Add to that Latin influences, Irish, Welsh and Scottish influences. Even the Celts were originally invaders (albeit, quite likely the original ones). I suspect you'd find it hard to find many remnants of written English that old - those influences were entrenched by the time of Magna Carta, The Domesday Book and Chaucer.
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deltalmg wrote:
most of your exceptions are due to puting [putting] a prefix or a postfix on the root word.
Nope. Count em. I left most of the re-i and e-ing words out. I needed some for context, however, to make the story flow. College is for all disciplines, not just math and engineering. Why do assume ALL programmers need math? No math is needed to build a web site (for-loops excepted). Similar question, why does a language major need to know math??
deltalmg wrote:
P.S. why did the US decide on math and vocab as the standard for college admissions anyways?
I dunno. That was before my time. I'm not a history buff. :)
deltalmg wrote:
Say your [you're] planning on doing pure math...but your need for vocab is limited
Vocab is important, none the less, so students can hear, read and understand the homework assignments. X|
Gary
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I before E except after C - when the sound is 'ee', was what I was taught, which reduces the number of exceptions considerably.
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
I before E except after C - when the sound is 'ee', was what I was taught, which reduces the number of exceptions considerably.
I don't think it actually rules out that many. I hadn't included words like science, where the 'ee' rule exception exception would apply, or species where it doesn't. :)
Gary
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"I challenge you to repeat said joke only using words derived from old english" Just how old do you want the English to be? If I remember my history correctly (I may not, if so someone please correct me!), the English were repeatedly invaded by Saxons (hence Anglo-Saxon), Vikings, and Normans. Indeed, after the Norman invasion of 1066 (that's nearly 1000 years ago now), French was, for a while, the official language used in any treaties etc. Add to that Latin influences, Irish, Welsh and Scottish influences. Even the Celts were originally invaders (albeit, quite likely the original ones). I suspect you'd find it hard to find many remnants of written English that old - those influences were entrenched by the time of Magna Carta, The Domesday Book and Chaucer.
I'm not sure what is the threashold of something being OE. But there is numerous words where my Webster's dictonary says the root is from OE (old english). Modern english words are mostly greek, latin, german and french but there is some old french and english thrown in there as well.
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To make an orange dye, 3 parts of red dye are mixed with 2 parts of yellow dye. To make a green dye, 2 parts of blue dye are mixed with 1 part of yellow dye. If equal amounts of green and orange are mixed, what is the proportion of yellow dye in the new mixture? a. 3/16 b. 1/4 c. 11/30 d. 3/8 d. 7/12 -- From the SAT question of the day email I get as Ian signed me up as well to get these questions. Now, he figured this out (good for him) but it stumped me because I view the concept of "parts" to be abstract, making it impossible to equate "equal amounts of green and orange". I guess that's what I get for dealing with object oriented programming languages and always thinking too hard about math word problems. I guess if you consider "part" as a variable, like in: 5po=3pr + 2py 3pg=2pb + 1py then the "p" gets completely factored out. But in my thinking, the "parts" for making orange can be very different than the "parts" for making green. Which is another thing that I always had a problem with in word problems. If something can be completely factored out in the math, then why is it even used as a word in the problem? I've always attached meaning to the words in a math problem, when in reality, a lot of those words simple disappear in the math expressions. Wierd. Oh well, back to my abstractions and other imaginary worlds that I live in. Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
But in my thinking, the "parts" for making orange can be very different than the "parts" for making green.
Correct. It does not matter. The ratio of yellow to red in orange is fix. It does not change. The color is mixed, and it was mixed to a certain ratio. That means, no matter how small the quantity you take, the ratio of red to yellow remains the same. The same is true for the green mix. (To make this more clear: The ratio determines what color the mix is, right? Now, if you remove any given amout of paint, will the color in the remaining paint change? Or in the paint you took? No! Because the ratio did not change.) Now, consider the remainder of the question: it says "equal amounts". Forget about the "parts" at this point. You now have a mix that contains, say, 5 oz. orange and 5 oz. green. Now, to calculate the result, we use the RATIO (which is abstract): 2/5 of yellow in the orange mix, 1/3 of yellow in the green mix. Now, one immediately realizes, neither 8, nor 12, 16 or 4 can be reached from the given ratios, because no basic arithmetic operation will get you there from the starting quantities. It has to be 11/30, which, coincidentally is what you get when you add the numbers and multiply the result by 0.5.
Cheers, Sebastian -- "If it was two men, the non-driver would have challenged the driver to simply crash through the gates. The macho image thing, you know." - Marc Clifton