What in the question is unclear or difficult to understand pertaining to both dice being thrown at the same time?
As a wordsmith yourself how would you change it so that more folks would get it?
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What in the question is unclear or difficult to understand pertaining to both dice being thrown at the same time?
As a wordsmith yourself how would you change it so that more folks would get it?
As you can likely tell by now red, I got over WoV's obnoxious "superiority complex" first when I successfully called them about playing my strategy, then when their beloved leader 's AP gambling mantra failed him enuf to be humbled before the masses. And what have they done in their visit here? Not much more than exhibit agitated insulting and namecalling--something they are not allowed to do over there, & just what you'd expect from the genius crowd when they aren't getting their way or able to change minds.
Red's depiction was right on, and all arci's doing is trying to show he belongs more over there than over here. But he seriously missed the OP's question being purposely provocative & vague. As soon as it was defined in relationship to the infamous "two-coin problem" it was a dead giveaway that only a mother would miss. In short, arci slipped up and is now taking a logic-beat down from red for doing so.
What is unclear is that it's specific wording can be taken in two ways. Do you approach it straight on by understanding that since there's one die already showing a 2, that we determine the odds of just the other die showing a 2? Or, do you back into the solution by trying to solve the problem using the two original dice? The short route or the long route? Easy vs. more complex. Those who choose to get to the answer quickly vs. those who enjoy analyzing statistics for all they're worth. In essence, there never really was a totally right or wrong answer, thus the heated discussions.Quote:
Originally Posted by quahaug
The OP could have given specific & clear parameters about whether one or both dice were still in play, but then why even bother to post such a boring question?
Quahaug, you're missing the point. If the majority of people misread or interpret the material differently, the material is flawed. It doesn't matter how I would try to fix it or how anyone would try to fix it. It's not my job to fix it. It's up to the writer to (1) explain the process so most people reading it would get it, (2) go out of his/her way to not bifurcate the audience, and (3) write nothing to make the writer look smart and the reader stupid. Conciseness in this case probably works against being understood.
I'd probably scrap the description as is and rewrite the thing step by step, expanding and explaining as I went. It should be written so the answer is obvious, but then that takes the whole cute trickiness aspect out of the thing. Without the trickiness, there's no "aha" aspect to it, and nobody would care about it.
It's written to provide an "aha" moment. The only problem is, stuff that tries to do that is self-absorbed and almost by definition bad communication.
There is no way around the fact that something that would be interpreted different ways by large chunks of a reading audience is not written appropriately. It has failed.
When Singer's mug is put into OSN or Griffin, then maybe, just maybe he'll get and ounce of credibility. Until then, anything he says has no merit, anywhere.
As for the OQ, that's "Original Question" for you all. Yes, it's the wording of the question that's the trick.
1/36 times 2-2 will show up
1/11 times 2-2 will show up when you EXCLUDE any non two numbers
1/6 times 2-2 will show up when setting one die on 2 and rolling the second separately.
I don't think the majority do misread it. Clearly the dice are thrown at the same time. How anyone can get one die is a two, then the other die is thrown is beyond my understanding. It would be like having a die with only twos, but there is no way to infer that either. What part of the question is unclear?
One of my concerns here is that a blatant failure in writing is somehow being considered less onerous than a blatant failure in math. If "the wording of the question is the trick," then the question should have been, obviously, worded differently. That is a failure of writing, a failure in communication, and that failure is worse because it's (1) self-serving vis-a-vis the writer and (2) dividing the audience into camps for no reason. Those are major failures just so some folks can feel clever.
If I can phrase 1+1=2 in such a clever way that people misinterpret it, I'm not being clever. I'm being a bad writer.
Quahaug, my simple response is -- why don't you rewrite the problem so Alan can easily understand what you're saying? Alan knows basic math. Alan can read. Alan is a world-class journalist. Just write it for him. You don't get bonus points for using the original question. There's no need for the original question.
Red, I get what you are saying, but in this case the problem is meant to make a person think. It is not meant to lead them directly to the correct answer. When you look at it from this perspective I think you will see that the writer achieved his goals. In this case there is nothing wrong with getting the wrong answer. The problem was meant to be tricky.
What bugs me is the number of people unwilling to admit they were wrong and still insisting they got it right. If I hadn't read the first few posts before thinking it through I might have gotten it wrong too. Big deal.
First you're done then you're not....get your stories straight :)Quote:
Originally Posted by jbjb
What I find interesting from these pseudo-mensas is their inability to comprehend basis mechanics, like when two dice are rolled and one of them is identified as being a 2, why they always have to pretend only one of the dice was rolled in order for the answer to be 1 in 6.
Nerves, I guess.
Alan. If you toss a pair of FAIR dice with your eyes closed, wait 60 seconds for both dice to settle, then you look and see that ONE of them is a two. What are the odds of the OTHER die being a two? I think the original was clearer but we'll see.
Q, you know what he'll say because your wording eliminated the first die for the answer to be arrived at. Just as the OP's question did, albeit in somewhat more of a tricky fashion.Quote:
Originally Posted by quahaug
Or maybe you could ask Alan how many ways a FAIR pair of dice can show when ONE and ONLY ONE shows a two? That does seem kind of simple but it doesn't make a very good riddle.
1/6. Sorry to disappoint you but given the question you wrote it can only be 1/6. Any die with six different faces only gives you 1/6.Quote:
Originally Posted by quahaug
You want a question with the 1/11 answer? You ask: how many combinations of two dice with at least one die showing a 2 can show 2-2? There's your fucking question. Clear and concise. I can't post that on the WOV forum but one of their English majors can edit it.
Cool, you finally get it.
Hopefully you and the others finally get it. There was only one correct answer to the original question and that was 1/6 because in the original question you are only talking about ONE die.Quote:
Originally Posted by quahaug
The way I wrote the question, you have to consider the different combinations of dice with a 2 showing.
Good stuff.
Hopefully we're now done with the WoV visitors' insults, namecalling and they're annoying stomping up & down like spoiled little brats, since there can be no doubt they feel they've been taken out to the woodshed over this question....more than once for that matter.
What Arci said about the purpose of the question being "to make people think" relates to what Alan said initially about the whole enterprise reminding him of the fake language questions on his law exam. I experienced something similar when I took the GREs after they had first introduced a logic section. I thought I would do best on it, but I actually scored worst on it. I kept reading the questions, thinking "I know what they're asking, but I would have written it this way." The unnecessary complexity of the logic section's writing, in an effort to test your abilities with purposefully tricked-up obfuscation, was a helluva distraction. They dropped the logic section shortly afterwards.
I just think the whole WoV presentation, argument, and aftermath (what Rob's reported) are adolescent. But who knows? Maybe a lot of the WoV forum people are real adolescents. I don't know. Maybe teachers or professors are underrepresented. Maybe they don't do much actual writing. Maybe this is how they get their jollies, by being anonymously clever. The whole thing was silly, and had nothing to do with Las Vegas or gambling.
Over on the Wizard's forum, one of the members proposed a different bet. I think this bet follows the assetion of the 1/11ers that the answer to the original question is 1/11:
Quote: rawtuff
Doesn't a proposed bet like bellow follow the original question EXACTLY ? -
A person puts two dices in a cup, shake and slam the cup on the table.
A second person peeks under the cup and truthfully announces if there is at least one deuce showing or not (he will later lift the cup and show to all he wasn't lying).
If "at least one deuce" is announced, the 1/6-ers will wager 1 unit on the premise that there are two deuces under the cup( a one in six probability according to them). If they're right, they get 9 units back. If they're wrong, they lose the 1 unit wagered.
Repeat.
They're all the same question.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson