Sunday, November 27, 2011

Differences masked at equals

Ok, on a typical school test, we have four students.  It is a test of only two questions, A and B.  Here's what happened:

When students are given "scores" on tests, that almost always means the number of questions or exercises they got "correct".  So, here X has 0 and W has 2, while Z and Y each have 1.  So, Z and Y are the same, right?  Look at the diagram: Z and Y are as different as they can be.  They are just as far apart as the complete 0 and the complete 2.  Worse, Z and Y are diametrically opposite each other: what one knows, the other doesn't.

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