Saturday, October 14, 2006

Ambiguous questions

A while ago I took a quiz that purported to measure your facism quotient, or something like that. (I came out liberal, big surprise). But this question caught my attention.
[25] Most people don't realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places.
It seemed to me that this question could be answered several ways. Well, okay, only two ways (T or F) but with different rationales for the answer.

I think this is the reading they're looking for:
T: our lives are controlled by plots, but most people don't realize it
But these three readings are also possible:
T: our lives are not controlled by plots, but most people think they are
F: our lives are controlled by plots, but most people do in fact realize it
F: our lives are not controlled by plots, and most people understand that just fine
So answering this question just T or F couldn't really give anyone an insight into my, shall we call it 'paranoia level'.

A lot of survey questions are flawed like this.

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