"Parse Tree" <parsetree at hotmail.com> wrote in message news:I1G19.1990
> > Believe it or not, Brian, the "liberals" are still arguing over what the
> > distribution would be if test takers just randomly guessed at the
answers
> to
> > a four choice multiple choice question.
> >
> > The distribution over 10,000 test takers will be as follows:
> >
> > A) 25%, plus or minus 0.75%
> >
> > B) 25%, plus or minus 0.75%
> >
> > C) 25%, plus or minus 0.75%
> >
> > D) 25%, plus or minus 0.75%
> >
> > Without wasting any time with all their silly and erroneous suppositions
> and
> > assumptions (the kind of thing they must have gone through when they and
> or
> > their cohorts answered lower than if they'd just guessed on ONE THIRD of
> the
> > questions), do you agree or disagree that this would be the
distribution?
>> This WOULD PROBABLY be the distribution. You keep using probabilities
while
> trying to speak with certainty. You can't do that.
>>
Ah, are we making progress?
"This WOULD PROBABLY be the distribution"?
Are you now making an about-face?
You actually DO agree now that this would be the outcome?
It is ONLY by using probability and statistics that we could arrive at the
conclusion that "This WOULD PROBABLY be the distribution". There's no other
way to know.
And the fact is that probability and statistics tells us that this WILL be
the distribution, which means all your feminazi cohorts who proclaim from
the rooftops that "we just don't have enough information" or "this is
ambiguous" are DEAD WRONG, and mathematics is DEAD RIGHT ON.
The larger the sample size, the smaller the deviation from 25%. TIMSS was a
large enough sample size that a 3% standard error is conservative.
So if 10,000 students just guess at a 4 part multiple choice question which
they have no clue what the answer is, between 24.25% and 25.75% of them will
accidentally get the correct answer.
If 20% of them select the correct answer, then we know they didn't just
guess randomly, because they scored 5% lower than if they'd just guessed.
This means they have to know something and either:
1) Knew the correct answer but intentionally selected the wrong answer, or
2) What they "knew" was wrong.
What's your opinion of why American 12th grade girls scored lower than if
they'd just guessed on ONE THIRD of the questions?
http://christianparty.net/timssphysics.htm
John Knight
