11–20 of 64 posts
It's a Kobayashi Maru. They're supposed to demonstrate their hacking skills and change the exam score.
Growing up in the US, we used to have questions like this on math exams. The correct answer is something to the effect of "Not enough information to solve this problem". Of course we had practice questions where that was the case before the exam, so it wasn't a surprise or anything... but it was standard practice.
It sounds like the old programming interview questions: "Why are sewer covers round?", etc. They sound like they promote critical thinking, but really they just confuse the applicants. If you want to know how someone thinks, ask them to solve a problem step by step.
Such questions are usually shibboleths for cultural and social affinity, rather than objective attempts to test critical thinking and logic.
Growing up in the US, we used to have questions like this on math exams. The correct answer is something to the effect of "Not enough information to solve this problem". Of course we had practice questions where that was the case before the exam, so it wasn't a surprise or anything... but it was standard practice.
Questions like "A ball is fired from a cannon at a 45 degree angle, how far from it's initial position does it land?" are also fairly common in Canada. I don't recall every being asked something this silly though. There's no formula to calculate the age of a ship captain based on his cargo. There's no 'missing piece' here.
Growing up in the US, we used to have questions like this on math exams. The correct answer is something to the effect of "Not enough information to solve this problem". Of course we had practice questions where that was the case before the exam, so it wasn't a surprise or anything... but it was standard practice.
Questions like "A ball is fired from a cannon at a 45 degree angle, how far from it's initial position does it land?" are also fairly common in Canada. I don't recall every being asked something this silly though. There's no formula to calculate the age of a ship captain based on his cargo. There's no 'missing piece' here.
Those are some MASSIVE sheep. I like that the internet know it all was just as wrong as everyone else. Also that the writer of the article didn't even bother to fact check it.
Growing up in the US, we used to have questions like this on math exams. The correct answer is something to the effect of "Not enough information to solve this problem". Of course we had practice questions where that was the case before the exam, so it wasn't a surprise or anything... but it was standard practice.
Questions like "A ball is fired from a cannon at a 45 degree angle, how far from it's initial position does it land?" are also fairly common in Canada. I don't recall every being asked something this silly though. There's no formula to calculate the age of a ship captain based on his cargo. There's no 'missing piece' here.
The lack of relevant relationship is the missing piece.
Given how much nonsense I've personally witnessed as a math tutor or TA as students shove unrelated numbers through unrelated equations in unmotivated manners in an attempt to come up with some answer, any answer, I'd say it's not any worse a question than giving them one that does correspond to an equation but has too few terms nailed down for a concrete answer.
The weird part of this story to me is that it is somehow newsworthy. Is it truly such an oddity in China that this made it to international news, or is there a heavy dollop of our local media basically turning off their critical thinking when it comes to China or Japan and boggling at anything, no matter how mundane?
It sounds like the old programming interview questions: "Why are sewer covers round?", etc. They sound like they promote critical thinking, but really they just confuse the applicants. If you want to know how someone thinks, ask them to solve a problem step by step.
Asking them to solve a problem step by step is great to learn whether that person is good at explaining the solution step by step. It is not about internal thought process you use to come up with solution.
It sounds like the old programming interview questions: "Why are sewer covers round?", etc. They sound like they promote critical thinking, but really they just confuse the applicants. If you want to know how someone thinks, ask them to solve a problem step by step.