But if B) 50% is the correct answer, and you're picking randomly, then you've only got a 1-in-4 (25%) chance of picking 'B'. If A & D weren't the same, I think A would be the correct answer. As it is, I've no idea how you handle the probabilities. Way too long since Math Class. :-)
The fucked-up-brilliant thing is that by there being two 25%s, 50% is an answer, but there's only one 50% so the chance of getting a correct answer is 25%.
If you're choosing B because you reasoned and used logic to come up with the correct answer, then you're not choosing randomly, which is part of the rules of the game.
BUT If you roll a four sided die, or come up with some other random way to choose the answer, then your odds of hitting the correct answer are 25%. But then since you have TWO chances to hit 25% (A and D), then the correct answer is B, 50%.
I don't think I'm explaining this very well. But it seems intuitively easy and obvious to me.
Nope. There's only a 25% chance of randomly choosing B. If B was the correct answer, then you'd have a *50%* chance of randomly choosing B (because that's what B says), which is wrong.
No, because the question isn't "what are your chances of choosing B". It's "what are your chances of choosing the correct answer".
In a list of four, you have a twenty five percent chance of choosing the correct answer. But if the correct answer shows up twice, then your odds rise to 50%. Therefore B is the correct answer.
You don't have a random 50% answer of choosing B. However you do have a 25% chance of choosing the right answer, TWICE, which makes B the right answer.
I understand this, and yet part of my brain is still insisting that there has to be a different way of looking at it which makes one of them righter...
Especially since there isn't actually a question to answer.
The thing-in-the-form-of-a-question asks us "what is the chance you will be correct", but it never actually states what "correct" is in reference to.
Everyone's been assuming it's really asking "what's the chance you'll land on an answer that describes the probability of that answer being picked", which is not actually what's being asked, on a close reading.
It's not even really asking us a coherent question, as well as there being no given correct answer for the question people are inferring.
Actually, because any grading of this question would have to accept both "50%" and either of the two "25%"s as valid answers so as to reconcile giving a definite mark for this question with the fact that the question is ultimately a logical loop with two iterations of correct answers, which ultimately means that the correct answer is really "75%",and as that isn't an answer means that the correct probability of getting the question right is 0%.
Note that as 0% also isn't an answer, we end up unwinding the logic loop by replacing it with one that produces the same answer for each iteration, as there is a 0% chance of selecting 0% at random.
Pretty much, yeah. You can use the same argument to demonstrate that D is the correct answer. But that doesn't mean that 'either A or D' is correct (which would make the probability 50%), because the two are mutually exclusive; either A is correct xor D is, never both.
Fuck you, I stayed up way longer than I should have trying to solve that. The only saving grace is that I DID solve it, and now I feel smart for having done so.
If it's any consolation, I initially failed to complete it in accidental hard mode, by printing it out and trying to work through it with a pencil.
It was only after I went back to the web to fill in as many as I thought I had that I realized the page helped you a bit by telling you which answers were wrong...
The correct answer is "there is no chance of picking a correct answer randomly". The question does not require a response of A,B,C or D. You've all been indoctrinated into a multi-choice-question culture of standardised testing.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 06:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 06:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 07:13 pm (UTC)If you're choosing B because you reasoned and used logic to come up with the correct answer, then you're not choosing randomly, which is part of the rules of the game.
BUT If you roll a four sided die, or come up with some other random way to choose the answer, then your odds of hitting the correct answer are 25%. But then since you have TWO chances to hit 25% (A and D), then the correct answer is B, 50%.
I don't think I'm explaining this very well. But it seems intuitively easy and obvious to me.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 07:21 pm (UTC)Nope. There's only a 25% chance of randomly choosing B. If B was the correct answer, then you'd have a *50%* chance of randomly choosing B (because that's what B says), which is wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 07:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:20 pm (UTC)In a list of four, you have a twenty five percent chance of choosing the correct answer. But if the correct answer shows up twice, then your odds rise to 50%. Therefore B is the correct answer.
You don't have a random 50% answer of choosing B. However you do have a 25% chance of choosing the right answer, TWICE, which makes B the right answer.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:30 pm (UTC)If B was the correct answer, then you would have a 50% chance of choosing B.
You do not. You have a 25% chance of choosing B. Therefore, B is not the correct answer.
But if the correct answer shows up twice, then your odds rise to 50%. Therefore B is the correct answer.
If B is the correct answer, then it doesn't show up twice. So your odds are now no longer 50%.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 05:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 03:56 am (UTC)Damn you. (Also, neat.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 09:34 pm (UTC)If the correct answer is 50%, then your chance of arriving at the correct answer by random choice is 25%... making the correct answer 25%.
There is, in fact, no correct answer.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 10:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 10:53 pm (UTC)And if it was available as a choice, it would not be the correct answer.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 04:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 02:02 pm (UTC)THE ONLY CORRECT ANSWER IS NOT TO PLAY(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-29 01:49 am (UTC)The thing-in-the-form-of-a-question asks us "what is the chance you will be correct", but it never actually states what "correct" is in reference to.
Everyone's been assuming it's really asking "what's the chance you'll land on an answer that describes the probability of that answer being picked", which is not actually what's being asked, on a close reading.
It's not even really asking us a coherent question, as well as there being no given correct answer for the question people are inferring.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 07:55 pm (UTC)If the correct answer is 25%, then your chance of arriving at the correct answer by random choice is 50%... making the correct answer 50%.
If the correct answer is 50%, then your chance of arriving at the correct answer by random choice is 25%... making the correct answer 25%.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 11:29 pm (UTC)I R WINAR?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 11:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 11:34 pm (UTC)So:
25% -> 50% -> 25% -> 75% -> 0% -> 0% -> 0%... -> 0%
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 09:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 11:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:25 pm (UTC)Although it was a three coffee problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 01:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-29 12:04 am (UTC)If it's any consolation, I initially failed to complete it in accidental hard mode, by printing it out and trying to work through it with a pencil.
It was only after I went back to the web to fill in as many as I thought I had that I realized the page helped you a bit by telling you which answers were wrong...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 08:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 03:41 am (UTC)"The answer is is C... you ****wad."
Date: 2011-10-27 09:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 10:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-27 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 12:53 am (UTC)P(x) = A (0.15)
= B (0.15)
= C (0.6)
= D (0.1)
The Answer...
Date: 2011-10-28 01:00 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj2NOTanzWI
HoverMaths goes Whrrrrrrrrrr
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 02:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 03:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-28 06:45 am (UTC)