• moakley
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    2 months ago

    B.

    This is a multiple choice test. Once you eliminate three answers, you pick the fourth answer and move on to the next question. It can’t be A, C, or D, for reasons that I understand. There’s a non-zero chance that it’s B for a reason that I don’t understand.

    If there is no correct answer, then there’s no point hemming and hawing about it.

    B. Final answer.

    • lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      I love this, it shows how being good at (multiple choice) tests doesn’t mean you’re good at the topic. I’m not good at tests because my country’s education system priorities understanding and problem solving. That’s why we fail at PISA

    • shalafi
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      2 months ago

      You think like I do. Bet you test well.

    • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Entertaining response but I disagree.

      I’m going to say that unless you’re allowed to select more than one answer, the correct answer is 25%. That’s either a or d.

      By doing something other than guessing randomly (seeing that 1 in 4 is 25% and that this answer appears twice), you now have a 50% chance of getting the answer correct. However, that doesn’t change the premise that 1 in 4 answers is correct. It’s still 25%, a or d.

      • moakley
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        2 months ago

        That’s an interesting perspective. The odds of correctly guessing any multiple choice question with four answers should be 25%. But that assumes no duplicate answers, so I still say that’s wrong.

        • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          I’m going to double down and say that on a real life test, this would likely represent a typo. In such case, I think you could successfully defend a 25% answer while a 60% answer is just right out the window, straight to jail.

      • moakley
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        2 months ago

        Does better reading comprehension get you a better answer?

        • the_q@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          No of course not, but the question is more important to the answer than the “correct” answer.

              • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                2 months ago

                It’s not a puzzle. It’s just wrong.

                “Which of the following is a mammal:
                A) rock
                B) time
                C) verb
                D) Enui”

                Is not a puzzle.

                • Kage520
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                  2 months ago

                  Based on previous guy’s logic: D.

                  I know A, B, and C are definitely wrong, but I’m not sure I fully understand D. So it’s D and move on.

                  Reality is I make a note and discuss with the teacher if they don’t notice themselves when tests come back.

  • Reddfugee42
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    2 months ago

    This is a self-referential paradox — a classic logic puzzle designed to be tricky. Let’s break it down:

    Step-by-step analysis:

    1. How many choices? There are 4 possible answers, so if we pick one randomly, the chance of picking any specific one is 1 in 4 = 25%.

    2. How many answers say “25%”? Two.

    3. That means the probability of randomly choosing an answer that says “25%” is 2 in 4 = 50%.

    4. But if the correct answer is 50%, then only one option says “50%” — which is ©. So the probability of picking it at random is 1 in 4 = 25%, contradicting the idea that 50% is correct.

    5. If the correct answer is 25%, then two options say that — a and d. So the chance of picking one of those at random is 50%, not 25% — again a contradiction.

    6. Similarly, if 60% is correct (only one option), then the chance of picking it randomly is 25%, which again makes it incorrect.

    Conclusion: Any choice leads to a contradiction. This is a self-referential paradox, meaning the question breaks logical consistency. There is no consistent correct answer.

  • nialv7
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    2 months ago

    The question is malformed and the correct answer isn’t listed in the multiple choices. Therefore the correct answer is 0%

  • Lucien [he/him]@mander.xyz
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    2 months ago

    This is a paradox, and I don’t think there is a correct answer, at least not as a letter choice. The correct answer is to explain the paradox.

  • user86223091@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    It’s 0%, because 0% isn’t on the list and therefore you have no chance of picking it. It’s the only answer consistent with itself. All other chances cause a kind of paradox-loop.

    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      Correct - even if you include the (necessary) option of making up your own answer. If you pick a percentage at random, you have a 0% chance of picking 0%.

      • Caveman
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        2 months ago

        Correct, including 0% as a part of the answers would make 0% a wrong answer.

    • rational_lib
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      2 months ago

      I agree with 0% but disagree there’s any paradox - every choice is just plain old wrong. Each choice cannot be correct because no percentage reflects the chance of picking that number.

      Ordinarily we’d assume the chance is 25% because in most tests there’s only one right choice. But this one evidently could have more than one right choice, if the choice stated twice was correct - which it isn’t. So there’s no basis for supposing that 25% is correct here, which causes the whole paradox to unravel.

      Now replace 60% with 0%. Maybe that would count as a proper paradox. But I’d still say not really, the answer is 0% - it’s just wrong in the hypothetical situation posed by the question rather than the actual question.

      • user86223091@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Completely agree! In this case there is no real paradox, 0% is a perfectly consistent answer.

        I think if you replace 60% with 0%, you’d get a proper paradox, because now there is a non-zero chance of picking 0% and it’s no longer consistent with itself. It’s similar to the “This statement is false” paradox, where by assuming something is true, it makes it false and vice versa.

  • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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    2 months ago

    It’s probably graded by a computer, and a) or d) is a fake answer, since the automated system doesn’t support multiple right answers.

    I’m going to go with 25% chance if picking random, and a 50% chance if picking between a) and d).
    If it’s graded by a human, the correct answer is f) + u)

  • bratorange@feddit.org
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    2 months ago

    This can also be used a great example of proof by contradiction: There is no correct answer in the options. Proof: Assume there was a correct answer in the options. Then it must be either 25%, 50% or 60%. Now we make a case distinction.

    (A) Assume it was 25. Then there would be two of four correct options yielding in a probability of 50%. Therefore 50 must be the correct answer. -> contradiction.

    (B) Assume it was 50. Then there would be one of four correct options yielding in a probability of 25%. Therefore the answer is 25. -> contradiction.

    © Assume it was 60%. Since only 0,1,2,3 or 4 of the answers can be correct the probability of choosing the right answer must be one of 0% 25% 50% 75% or 100%. -> contradiction.

    Because of (A), (B) and ©, it cannot be 25, 50% or 60%. -> contradiction.

  • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    This seems like a version of the Liar paradox. Assume “this statement is false” is true. Is the statement true or false?

    There are a bunch of ways to break the paradox, but they all require using a system that doesn’t allow it to exist. For example, a system where truth is a percentage so a statement being 50% true is allowed.

    For this question, one way to break the paradox would be to say that multiple choice answers must all be unique and repeated answers are ignored. Using that rule, this question only has the answers a) 25%, b) 60%, and c) 50%, and none of them are correct. There’s a 0% chance of getting the correct answer.

  • Caveman
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    2 months ago

    You can never answer this question correctly. If the correct answer is 25% there’s a 50% chance you guess correctly but that would make the 25% wrong.

    But if the answer is the 50% then it implies that 25% is correct which implies that 50% is wrong.

    We reach a contradiction for both 25% and 50% making the correct answer to make the whole statement truthy 0%.

  • deur@feddit.nl
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    2 months ago

    If you suppose a multiple choice test MUST ONLY have one correct answer:

    1. Eliminate duplicate 25% answers

    2. You are left with 60% and 50% as potential answers to this question.

    3. C is the answer

    If you were to actually select an answer at random to this question while believing the above, you would have a 50% chance of answering 25%.

    It is obvious to postulate that: for all multiple choice questions with no duplicate answers, there is a 25% chance of selecting the correct answer.

    However as you can see, in order to integrate the answer being C with the question itself, we have to destroy the constraints of the solution and treat the duplicate 25% answers as one sum correct answer.

    Do you choose to see the multiple choice answer space as an expression of the infinite space of potential free form answers? Was the answer to the question itself an expression of multiple choice probability or was it the answer from the free form answer space condensed into the multiple choice answer space?

    The question demonstrates arriving at different answers between inductive and deductive reasoning. The answer depends on whether we are taking the answers and working backwards or taking the question and working forwards. The question itself forces the inductive reasoning strategy to falter at the duplicate answers, leading to deductive reasoning being the remaining strategy. Some may choose to say “there is no answer” in the presence of needing to answer a question that only has an answer because we are forced to pick one option, and otherwise would be invalid. Some may choose to point out it is obviously a paradox.

  • Sculptus Poe
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    2 months ago

    The answer is not available. The answer is 0 Percent. Each answer, if chosen, would be incorrect. If 0% was an answer, it would be the correct one despite being a 25% chance. Of course, if one 25% was there, that would be the correct answer.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      But if you did randomly choose the 0% option, you’d be correct. So if one of the possible answers was 0% the correct answer would be 25%.

      • Sculptus Poe
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        2 months ago

        But it wouldn’t be correct, so 0% would remain the answer.

        • Ech@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          The point is that it can’t be the answer if it’s an option.

          • Sculptus Poe
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            2 months ago

            But the teacher can’t mark it wrong, making it right.

            • Ech@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              Yes, they can. That’s the problem with it being an option.

              • Sculptus Poe
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                2 months ago

                If they mark it wrong, and all the others, if chosen, are wrong, then your answer was right and they would have to fix their mistake. That wave collapses to there being 0% chance of being right.

  • cholesterol
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    2 months ago

    Paradoxes aside, if you’re given multiple choices without the guarantee that any of them are correct, you can’t assign a chance of picking the right one at random anyway.