This. I.e., there is no correct answer.
harmbugler 13 points 2 months ago
Sooo, C?
Untamed_Star 7 points 2 months ago
if c was correct then it would be 25% then 50% and then 25% again ans 50% and 25%
recursivethinking 2 points 2 months ago
Write -in, E, none of the above
Cethin 4 points 2 months ago
The answer "there is no correct answer" is correct, but the answer isn't 0%. It's a paradox. There isn't a solution, which isn't the same thing as saying there's a 0% chance of getting the right solution (when that is one of the choices).
Natanael 5 points 2 months ago
Essentially there's a difference between "0% of answers will be correct (because none can be)" and "the listed 0%-option self-invalidates if selected". The problem is the interaction between answers that shouldn't be there in normal tests, which changes the values after selection.
Therefore, the only winning move is not to play.
chuckleslord 4 points 2 months ago
No, picking C makes A and D correct, which in turn makes B correct. There is no correct answer.
Mikina 54 points 2 months ago
Couldn't you argue that 0% is correct?
It's a paradox, no of the answers can be correct, so the chance that you pick the correct one is 0%.
Sure, by picking it, it makes it wrong, but you don't care about that.
If you ran a infite monte carlo test on it, you'd end up with 0% correct answers.
Sure, picking the zero makes it not true again, but you don't care about that - it prooves that the statistical test holds.
airbreather 25 points 2 months ago
Nah it's a paradox. There's no such thing as just a freestanding Monte Carlo test that you can just "run" - you do actually need to define enough parameters to make it tell you anything.
This kind of self-referential stuff feels like a proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorems with extra steps.
prime_number_314159 5 points 2 months ago
You do not need to pick at all for the paradox to exist. If either A or D is correct, the other is also correct, and the random odds of selecting the correct answer should have been 50%. This is a contradiction. Neither A nor D can be the correct answer.
If B is correct, the random odds of selecting it is only 25% - a contradiction, so B cannot be correct. Likewise, if C is correct, there is a 25% chance of randomly picking C. C is also not correct.
None of the four answers is correct, so there is a 0% chance of randomly picking the correct answer. C is correct, contradiction, C is not correct, C is correct, is not, is too, etc.
The paradox is resolved by knowing the the scantron answer key has A selected. D is not sufficiently identical to A in javascript, so only the students that randomly guessed the correct answer will get credit.
Because the paradox can only be resolved with either A or D as the selected answer, well informed students picking randomly would have a 50% success rate.
harmbugler 2 points 2 months ago
But why is C a contradiction? I'm not randomly picking it.
balsoft 3 points 2 months ago
If you ignore self-referential nature of the question and stop the iteration at some point, sure, you can argue that any answer is correct.
If you ran a infite monte carlo test on it, you’d end up with 0% correct answers.
That would mean your Monte Carlo test is set up incorrectly because at least 1/4 of the results of the test would be the "correct" answer as per your own argument, thus invalidating it.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 13 points 2 months ago
"It's your responsibility now you scaly sucker!" and then voom off on my dune buggy. Also in this scenario I have a dune buggy for reasons.
cows_are_underrated 2 points 2 months ago
Would like to borrow the buggy too.
DonPiano 1 point 2 months ago
path: 0 25167270 25167550 25168013 25168506 25171302, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
MutantTailThing 17 points 2 months ago
Does anyone else smell pancakes?
sudoMakeUser 6 points 2 months ago
Yeah, that's me. They're ready.
Crozekiel 15 points 2 months ago
I would answer C) 0% - Ultimately I feel this isn't a "pick the correct answer" type of test and more of a "pick the best answer" type of test.
My reasoning is there are really two questions - one is being answered at random, the other I am answering. The one being answered at random is making any answer it chooses wrong - If it picks A or D (25%), then the correct answer is B (50%). If it picks B (50%), then the answer is either A or D (25%). If it chooses C (0%) then the correct answer is A or D (25%) again. No matter which one is chosen at random, it becomes wrong as soon as it is chosen. So then back to the question on the test that I am answering, the correct answer is C) 0%.
Also, if the teacher marks that wrong, then I am even more correct.
dogdeanafternoon 14 points 2 months ago
It’s definitely B ) 50%. Ignoring the values for answers, there can only be 1 “correct” answer. If you have 4 options and 1 can be correct, a random guess is 25%. Since there are 2 options for 25%, you have a 50% chance of guessing the correct 25%.
dogdeanafternoon 7 points 2 months ago
I fucking hate this game 😭
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 3 points 2 months ago
I think I remember solving this one with expected values but game theory was a few decades ago
WoodScientist 0 points 2 months ago
Ignoring the values for answers, there can only be 1 “correct” answer.
Only if you ignore the possibility of there being zero correct answers or more than one possible correct answer. Even a math problem can have more than one correct answer.
Solve this equation:
x^2=25
a) 5
b) -5
c) 50
d) 625
e) undefined
Jarix 1 point 2 months ago
I'm not a math person(Dropped out of grade 12 math)
How could this be any answer other than five or negative five?
I understand that multiplying a negative will cancel out the negatives and give you a positive result but I don't understand how the equation could work with the other answers(i am assuming all your answers are examples of answers that can be correct)
WoodScientist 2 points 2 months ago
No. You're correct. It's just +/-5.
chonglibloodsport 4 points 2 months ago
You can’t separate the question like that. Whichever answer you circle indicates your assertion that this is the probability of getting the correct answer by uniform random chance.
This means that any answer you circle is wrong, and so the correct answer is to not circle any of them. You could even write e) none of the above to indicate that you have deliberately chosen not to circle one of them instead of skipping the question.
I have had plenty of exams with multiple choice questions that included the possibility of no correct answers, one correct answer, or even multiple correct answers, and we were expected to make that judgement (rather than blindly follow instructions).
chonglibloodsport 3 points 2 months ago
They’re called multi-select questions and you’re warned about them by the professor ahead of time. Sometimes they have a “none of the above” option but sometimes they don’t.
The purpose is to get you to think critically. If you look at a question and all of the options seem wrong to you, making a guess because “one of them has to be right, it’s multiple choice” is lazy thinking and has nothing to do with the subject matter. In real life you don’t have the luxury of knowing that there’s one correct answer among a set of options.
The purpose of an exam is to test your knowledge of the course subject, not to test your ability to take multiple choice tests. Sometimes that’s hard to separate out, but the standard multiple choice question (where one and only one answer must be correct) is very game-able by guessers who don’t know the subject very well and risks the possibility of someone getting very lucky while not knowing anything.
daychilde 1 point 2 months ago
Well, I suppose I fell into the trap of thinking that questions with no right answers meant nobody could get a perfect score, but I would imagine that 1) it's fair across the board and 2) accounted for in the scoring somehow.
I suppose I was always a fan of taking easy multiple choice tests as a student - some people write them such that by using the tiniest amount of logic, someone with zero knowledge of the subject could still probably ace them, versus someone writing a diabolical one that dives deep into the subject matter and has answers that are very very slightly different and you really do have to know the material strongly to have any hope. lol. But taking a diabolical test where some questions don't have ANY correct answers would be even MORE satisfying to ace if you really do know the material well enough, so that sounds like fun. :)
chonglibloodsport 1 point 2 months ago
If your chance of getting the right answer is 0%, then the right answer is (c) 0%, giving you a 1/4 or 25% chance of being correct, thus the answer cannot be 0%.
bstix 11 points 2 months ago
The correct answer is to leave all the options unmarked.
If you do pick an answer, then you didn't do it randomly. When not marking the answers, the if-statement has the result of "false", but that's not the question.
If your teacher then asks why you didn't answer it, you can safely and unparadoxically claim that inaction is also an option.
bstix 1 point 2 months ago
Technically they're not even asking me to answer the statement.
It only states that if I pick an answer then something. And I just don't.
The idea that you must mark an answer is only implied by it being a standard test.
This might seem silly, but it happens in real life too. For instance:
Please choose the correct answer to the question: Is Mitch McConnell dead or alive? Yes or no.
The republicans have chosen not to answer that test. Can we blame them? Yes, but for what, they didn't do anything? They are avoiding the Schrödinger paradox by choosing inaction. In some other kinds of cases it might be criminal to withhold information through inaction, but it's always difficult to prove such a case.
Buddhism also has a lot of these riddles, where the correct action or teaching is to not acknowledge the question.
YiddishMcSquidish 2 points 2 months ago
They aren't asking them to pick an answer at random though.
bountygiver 9 points 2 months ago
add a e) 20%
fbs 35 points 2 months ago
If the answer is B, that means there's a 25% chance of getting the right one. So the answer is A and D. But wait... that's 50%
50% means 25%
That means 50%
So it's 0% because it's impossible.
Meaning it's 25%
Damn it
Scipitie 7 points 2 months ago
Not really but you're thinking in the right direction!
There is no correct answer because the question and the answers exclude themselves:
For four different options it is 25% but here two options are the same - so you have a 50% chance to land on a 25% - but this means that the correct answer is only in one of the four answers, therefore you're having a 25% chance.
It's a nice demonstration of what happens when the answer and question are intervined and any result changes an aspect of the answer - you're fucked, basically.
bizarroland 9 points 2 months ago
None of the answers are correct, though, because all of the answers are correct as you work through the problem solving for correctness, but once you have actually analyzed the problem for that answer being the answer to the question, it is no longer correct.
I'll do a boring and pointless breakdown of it here:
Statistically, if there are four answers and one of them is correct and it's picked at random, then you have a 25% chance of being correct.
There are two answers that are 25%. If you land on either one of them, that would be correct.
That means that you have a 50% chance of being correct.
There is only one 50% answer, which means you have a 25% chance of being correct.
But there are two 25% answers which means the correct answer is 50%.
But, since none of the answers are correct, then the correct answer is 0%.
But 0% is one of the answers.
So you have a 25% chance of being correct.
I personally would write in "E: None of the above, 20%."
Azteh 2 points 2 months ago
Well wouldn't the correct answer for us to mark be 25% then? As we aren't marking it randomly but we are specifically choosing it, therefore you have a 25% random chance to pick 0% which makes us marking a 25% answer correct
bizarroland 1 point 2 months ago
But if 0% was the correct answer, then there would not be a correct answer on the test.
25% != 0%
balsoft 6 points 2 months ago
Here's a more fun one:
If you pick an answer to this question at random, what is the chance that you will be correct? Mark at least one of the applicable options.
(a) 20%
(b) 6.25%
(c) 0%
(d) 20%
And as another puzzle, what happens if you swap "at least one of the" for "all"?
WoodScientist 2 points 2 months ago
First I need to figure out which answer always lies, and which one always tells the truth.
balsoft 2 points 2 months ago
If it's a part of the standardized test that actually does make it much easier. A standardized test only allows to mark one option and that option needs to be derived unambiguously from the question. As such, neither A nor B are actually possible answers under this framework, D is not a possible answer to the question, and we're left with C.
If I was given the original question as part of some standardized test, I would probably think about it for a while, flip a coin mentally, choose either A or D, and then contest it afterwards if it gets marked as being incorrect.
UpperBroccoli 5 points 2 months ago
The right answer is neither a nor b nor c nor d, but "beer with tzatziki".
UpperBroccoli 1 point 2 months ago
Aye.
Zizzy 4 points 2 months ago
Its 25%. The rules of answering a question with a set of options is that you may only choose one and only one is right unless explicitly stated otherwise. Anything else is breaking the rules, which as the taker would be disqualifying. If you start narrowing it down, as in "its 25% and theres two so now i need to guess therefore its 50" you are no longer answering the question at random and you have answered wrong. But you do have to make that coin flip. Good luck.
balsoft 4 points 2 months ago
This is the only correct answer to the question as stated.
That of course opens a second can of worms, since now you are actually forced to "pick the answer at random", now with the probability of 50%. But such double entendres are typically not considered for test questions unless explicitly specified.
dogdeanafternoon 1 point 2 months ago
Yeah, in my opinion the answer is 50%. You got a 50/50 shot at picking the correct 25% answer.
Slashme 4 points 2 months ago
There is no correct answer. The reason why there's no correct answer is that it's a self-referential paradox, but imagine you saw this:
What is 1+1?
A) 9
B) π
C) 76
D) Syria
There's no correct answer, so it's not a valid multiple choice question.
Tidesphere 3 points 2 months ago
The answer is null because the question references information that we don't have. It can't be answered.
Tidesphere 2 points 2 months ago
The question asks "What is the likelihood that you will give the correct answer to this question?" But does not detail the question that it is asking.
As a hypothetical, if I came up to you and said
"What is the answer to my question?"
There are a number of ways you could answer, such as saying "What question?" Or even just "I don't know". But the fact of the matter is that you cannot give a knowledgeable answer in earnest because the question I gave you is malformed and lacking information.
Like, I get the point of the question pictures, it's a very funny "haha look at this mathematical conundrum, isn't that pretty funny guys?" And it's a good question for that
But I guess I'm just being a buzzkill by saying that technically none of these answers is correct because the premise of the question itself relies on a language error. Idk
KairuByte 1 point 2 months ago
“This question” means “the current question being g asked” and trying to argue otherwise is just silly. The only way you could be confused in that is if you’re not a native English speaker (and if you’re not, fair enough). My point being, you are given the full question, the question being referenced, and the possible answers.
It’s unanswerable not because of a language error, it’s because the second 25% makes it impossible to correctly answer as the answer is essentially a mathematical paradox. All answers are simultaneously correct and incorrect.
Tidesphere 1 point 2 months ago
I am a native English speaker with a very good comprehension of the language.
So let's walk through the logic then, follow me on this one.
I walk up to you and ask
"What is the answer to my question?"
I claim you have been given full information as to what the question is, and you are able to knowingly answer it without saying "I don't know" or "What question?"
How do you answer?
alessandro 2 points 2 months ago
Can't be 25% = it could be correct if the "other 25%" was 24 or 26 (or even 25.000001). Since there are two 25%, the 25% change is raised, nullify the 25% prediction. Can't be 50%, because there are other two different options in addition to fifty in fifty-fifty; so 50% (or fifty-fifty) don't exist as option.
Can't be 0%, because 0% is a very specific assertion that can't ever be true due to paradox (if you "guessed", you nailed it 100%)
Result: malformed question, no one is valid... The best you can have is 25%, which is still wrong, but I thing is the closer to approximate. Ideally the question would reform as:
Option A: 25% Option B: 50% Option C: 0%
=33.3~%
Simulation6 2 points 2 months ago
Answer can be a,b,c or d. So could be a or d. Pick one at random and you have a 50% chance.
MathiasTCK 2 points 2 months ago
C, if there is a requirement to show your work and random guesses that don't show work get no credit.
NightFantom 2 points 2 months ago
Nobody said it was uniform random, there's probably infinite probability distributions that end up correct
NocturnalMorning 1 point 2 months ago
Ahh, I see you also have the blueprints to creating a black hole.
itsgroundhogdayagain 1 point 2 months ago
It can't be 0 and 2 of the 3 remaining answers are the same number so there are really only 2 choices left. That gives you a 50% chance of guessing the right answer.
Nounka 1 point 2 months ago
I was thinking otherwise. 4 answers possible would make idd 25% correct.
But since two answers are the same... 3 possible answers. So 33% is solution. That is not an option....
So 0% is the only right answer C
Nounka 3 points 2 months ago
No. More like 0 % cause the answer is not here. Like i would ask wich animal has 8 legs. Dog. Cat. Horse. Millipede. No right answer possible. Bad question. Not counting to the total. Maybe i should have said not 0% C but just 0%
Not a 0 % chance you guess right between the 4 choises.
Or not 0% like you say.
To me your way would make it the right answer intentionally. But if you read the other explenations...
There are to much ways to think.
So exept this is a filosofie exam...and you need to explain way you think. And the points are on the reasoning. This is not math than.
This is an error for me. Bad question. So the points from this question chould be taken out of the total.
Probably now all the math knowers are mad at me.
SkyezOpen 5 points 2 months ago
Two answers being the same doesn't mean it's a 1 in 3. It's still 1 in 4 for each option. Basically if you rolled a d4 and chose based on that, you'd have a 50% chance to randomly pick 25, which would make 50% the right answer, but then change the likelihood of being correct 25% again. It's infinitely self referential with no correct answer.
RememberTheApollo_ 1 point 2 months ago path: 0 25167182, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
matlag 7 points 2 months ago
I would answer 0%.
You say the answer is 50%. So 25% is not the right answer to the question, right? So you only have 25% chance of randomly selecting 50%, and therefore, 50% is the wrong answer.
So the answer is 25%, but you have 50% chance of picking 25%, so it's wrong again.
You can't solve it: the answer is 0%.
Coleslaw4145 5 points 2 months ago
But that would mean 0% is the correct answer.
So theres a 25% chance of picking 0% as the correct answer.
The correct answer changes depending on what answer you picked.
Its a Schrodingers probability question.
matlag 1 point 2 months ago
If 0% is not the right answer, that confirms that no matter what you pick at random, this is not the right answer: your chances of picking it are 0.
As much as you can loop to demonstrate the other answers are all wrong, you demonstrate 0 is the correct answer by a loop also.
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