24 Comments

I’m sure they were entirely correct. Don’t bother grading them.

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All of the answers may be found in the last issue of Global Eyes, anyway.

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Short answer: no! I made some guesses.

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There needs to be an "I don't know" option. I don't want to guess and get it wrong. Then I'm an idiot. But if I say "I don't know" then I'm not guessing, and I've answered correctly. Then I'm merely ignorant. And there's a fix for that. Get crackin', Miss Daisy!

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Never mind. I don't know the answer to any of the questions.

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Bet you do.

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Jan 18, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

100% as well, although I'm deeply skeptical because half my answers were little more than random guesses. Shouldn't we get a grade distribution?

Thank God I nailed the one on Cameroon.

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How do you know you got 100 percent?

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Because every single bold bar had a checkmark next to it. (And I'm 100% confident you wouldn't commit a visual redundancy.)

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Alas, that just means you answered it, not that it was the right answer.

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wait... all my bars are bold. My answers have the checkmark. So how can I tell how wrong I am?

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We'll review the answers later today, provided my trip to the vet this morning goes okay. (I discovered a nasty growth on my cat's hind leg. It's either a cyst or a tumor. At her age, it's hard to rule out the latter. So today she'll have a biopsy, and I'll be awfully distracted until I get the results. My poor beautiful cat.)

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Jan 20, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

When I answered a question I was told what percentage voted for the each option, and most questions seemed to have a fair spread. Probably not too easy.

Any update on the cat?

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Thank you for asking. It's bad news, but not the worst. It's a tumor, unfortunately. But it hasn't infiltrated the bone or the organs. She's going to lose the leg, poor thing, but they think the odds good that she'll survive and that the amputation will be curative.

I'm so sad that she'll lose the leg and that she'll have to go through such a painful and traumatic surgery, but the only other choices are euthanasia, or letting her die of cancer. The first seems absurd, because despite her age, she's happy and she's in perfect health. (Apart from cancer. But you know what I mean. She has no other underlying health conditions, and she *very* much enjoys being alive.) Allowing her to be devoured by cancer would be even more cruel than subjecting her to an amputation.

Cats have a much easier time with amputation than humans do. I know that's true: I've known many happy three-legged animals. The vets think it's absolutely the right thing to do; she could well have a number of good years ahead of her, and even if she doesn't, she'll feel better for however much time she has left without a cancerous tumor growing on her leg. (It's very painful.) So the tumor has to go.

That's the plan, on Tuesday. Of course I *hate* the thought. My poor little girl. But I have to make the best decisions I can on her behalf, and this seems to me (by far) the best of awful options.

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Well done!

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Jan 18, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

100% correct.

But that's because I'm on the spectrum between dilettante and junkie.

Eric Hines

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Well done, I made it too easy, it seems!

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Jan 18, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

There are a couple of tricks to this. I can comment on that publicly, or I can PM you.

Eric Hines

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Either way, just don't ruin it for anyone else.

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Jan 18, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

Some I knew enough context--my spectrum status--that I was able to reduce the odds considerably below the naive guess odds of 4:1 against, and make informed estimates regarding the remaining choices.

Otherwise, PMed.

Eric Hines

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That's what you're supposed to do! Being good at multiple choice exams has long been my superpower.

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Yeah, but being good a testing isn't the same as actually knowing the material well enough to get along in real time in the real world.

Sort of like Pinkley's question at an ersatz inspection: "Very pretty, but can they fight?"

Eric Hines

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