Pop Quiz!

[asterroc]

Okay gentlemen and ladies, someone's cellphone went off so it's time for a Pop Quiz. Put away your notes, put away your pencils and papers, put away your calculators, and most especially put away your cellphones and answer the following questions.

That's right, I want you to answer it without a calculator and also without even writing anything down. I assure you it's possible. Please do your best.

[Poll #1536640]

When you're done, you may turn in your papers and go back to your regularly scheduled midterm exam grading.

If you're not certain of your answer, please feel free to explain your reasoning.

Comments

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

Easy. 2pi is a bit more than six 1.7/6 is going to be somewhat less than .3 .3² is going to be less than .3

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I thought even less about it ;)

pi is bigger than 1, so 1.7/(2 * something more than 1) is going to be less than 1.7.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought about it along similar lines: 2pi > 1.7, so 1.7/(2pi) < 1. And < 1 squared is even smaller.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

This is my reasoning as well.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

It is important to only be as precise as the situation warrants.

[rosefox]

Yep. First question: is it a proper or improper fraction? Second question: how many of the possible answers are <1? Problem solved. And given the first, the second is a no-brainer.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

I saw the "Pop Quiz" title and thought that this was a post by popfiend. I expected that there would be some discussion of wacky life stuff, but no, it's just the quiz.

"How curious," I thought, "this seems more like something zandperl would do. I wonder why popfiend made this poll...?"

And then I looked at the entry again.

Whoops!

[q10.livejournal.com]

can i ask what actually provoked this?

[devjoe.livejournal.com]

I TAed some classes during my days as a student, so I can assure you that some students make errors in their homework they would have noticed if they had taken the brief moment it took to answer this quiz when reviewing their answer.

[q10.livejournal.com]

did i ever deny that?

i'm trying to figure out the precise shape of the provoking incident in order to understand what the information gleaned by running the question by us is supposed to be good for.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

It's not necessarily good for anything, as opposed to just venting frustration. There was a problem on one of my midterms where students had to determine the effective spring constant of a car's suspension system based upon oscillations observed after hitting a bump. More students screwed up this particular piece of arithmetic than got it correct.

Yawn

[foxsearth.livejournal.com]

I think you should make a multiple choice pop quiz where you have to pick the correct proof.
Now that's a poll I'd like to see.