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Interesting Question/debate


george_seamons

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Following a question I saw on Facebook, I decided to bring it to the attention of Trials Forum. I found it very interesting to see different peoples' reactions to a fairly simple question.

It goes as follows;

If you choose an answer at random, what is your probability of being correct?

A: 25%

B: 50%

C: 60%

D: 25%

So....what do the people of T-F think?

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Depends on the number of possible answers..

Edit: Re-read and guessing 0.5.

There are 3 answers, 25%, 50% or 60%. The bit that makes it confusing is that the answers are percentages. If you replace the percentages with something else, eg cat, dog and horse, then you the chances of the answer being cat (25%) are higher than dog (50%) or horse (60%). But you still can't be sure.... Gah!

Edit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem is a similar thing, worth a read although the Wikipedia article is a bit long. Even got my dad with this and he is usually on the ball with this kind of thing.

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My brain...

In all seriousness I don't get it. The probability of randomly being correct depends on the number of possible answers. The answers you give have nothing to do with the question.

It relates to the question itself though.. The grounds for my answer was the there are four answers, 25%, 50%, 60% and 25%. If you pick 25% there is a 0.5 chance you will be right and 0.25 chance for the other two answers.

I don't think there is a correct answer though - as Tom's was different - more likely to be right though :P .

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I would say you picking an answer at random would be choosing A, B, C, or D. That'd mean you've got a 1 in 4 chance of getting it right. Assuming there is only one right answer, it doesn't matter what A, B, C and D actually relate to because A and D are completely distinct.

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I would say you picking an answer at random would be choosing A, B, C, or D. That'd mean you've got a 1 in 4 chance of getting it right. Assuming there is only one right answer, it doesn't matter what A, B, C and D actually relate to because A and D are completely distinct.

My thoughts exactly.

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Well...I (and several other people!) went totally the other way, and took the question more literally. A lot of people mistake the answers for being part of the question...I don't think they are. It says "If you choose AN ANSWER at random, what is your probability of being correct?". An answer to what? It doesn't actually give a question.

No matter what the question; you can only be correct, or incorrect.

...Thus 50%

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If you choose an answer at random, what is your probability of being correct?

A: 25%

B: 50%

C: 60%

D: 25%

The wording of this question is a little wrong, "what is your probability of being correct"... correct what? There isn't a question to be answered.

There's a 25% chance of picking any answer, but because there's two answers that are 25%, that means the correct answer to the question is 50%. But that changes the answer of the question.

So without a more defined question, the whole thing makes no sense.

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So,

What's unusual about this paragraph? Just how quickly you can find out what is so funny about it. It looks fairly ordinary and plain that you might think nothing is wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is highly curious though. Study it and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you could just find out.

Quick Hint: What is missing within this paragraph?

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