Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Less-than-Multiple Choices

On a slightly silly note...

Michael & I came up with a new term last night...

When answering multiple choice questions, it's frequently the case that there is at least one answer that it just could not be. I commented on this and came up with the following example:
Question: What colour is the sky?
A: Red
B: Yellow
C: Green
D: Blue
E: Parrot

This lead to the coining of the term 'the Parrot', meaning the option/answer that it just cannot be because it makes no sense at all.

A more 'real life' example might be a TV phone-in with the question: "For the Benefit of... who?" was a song by the Beatles? A: Mr Kite, B: Mr Jones, C: Mr Blobby. (In case you missed it, C is the Parrot!).

2 comments:

hatchris said...

Reminds me of the classic driving theory test 'Parrot'....
"You come round a corner on a country lane, and a flock of sheep is blocking the road* - do you:

a) drive quickly at them, beeping your horn frequently"

I really had that as an option on my test....so tempted....

Hi, by the way! Your blogging frequency over the last week or so has put the rest of the world to shame.

*apart from in Yorkshire, how often does this actually happen?

Unknown said...

Hey Sal, I can see the Bitmap World graphic.

And I agree with Chris, you do get some crackers of questions in the driving theory!

'A group of children suddenly cross the road on their skateboards. you round a corner. Do you:'

a) Perform an emergency stop
b) Slow down just in time to make the point that they should have looked first
c) Gunned the accelerator and honked the horn to make them speed up
d) Pull the handbrake and come to a movie-style skid stop
e) Teach them a lesson. Chase them down the pavement. In your car.

Daft questions make me laugh, and I like your coining of 'the parrot' ;)