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A puzzle on the ASVAB
I was linked to this on another forum. No instructions were given, apparently - just this picture. What's the deal?
It seems to me the answer is clearly C, not A as the test indicates; and the members in the original thread appear to agree. However, attempted justifications of A have been made, none of which are very convincing to me - mainly because if there are no instructions and an obvious answer, there's not really any benefit for them to reward a different interpretation, which would almost certainly involve arbitrary assumptions regarding the rules they really want you to apply.
Trick questions on exams seem to rely on failure to pay close attention to instructions, or insufficiently rigorously apply rules; when there are no instructions, what justification would anyone have for not choosing the most obvious interpretation? Any could be right!
What do the geniuses here at MoreRight think?
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Comments (13)
Kobayashi Maru!
C is almost certainly the correct answer. This image has been photoshopped or the 'correct answer A' references the next question, or some other similar mishap.
sample questions all point to C being the straightforward choice.
The ASVAB is not an exemplar of careful correctness and it is not targeted at people for which that would be beneficial. When I took it many years ago there were a few questions with glaring ambiguities and questionable assumptions; I simply picked the answer that I thought they would want me to pick if I was ignorant of the subject matter.
I maxed the test.
The test is not aimed at intelligent, educated people. It is designed to filter out people of low intelligence. I've met many people that struggled to achieve 50%, something I used to find shocking. If there are a few technical ambiguities then that is of little consequence for its intended purpose. While there is some basic occupation recommendations based on the ASVAB, it is not designed to identify the significantly above average -- quite the opposite.
...huh?
Why did I get a -1 for this? I didn't make the puzzle. I'm just as confused by the lack of instructions.
This test, as I understand it, is the U.S. military "entrance exam". This may be from a practice version, unless they let you take it online. I'm guessing you're supposed to pick the answer that shows a line going from point A to point B.
Why assume that the rectangle is stationary and the star moves? Why ignore how things are attached? Why not think of them falling out of an airplane and choose D as clearly superior?
I don't think "it's probably supposed to be a test of physical intuition" is all that plausible. So I just googled, and it looks like I'm right. It seems to fall into the "assembling objects" category.
Googling "assembling objects" turned up another sample problem of the same format which includes these instructions:
In other words, there are 3 objects (a star, line, and rectangle), and you are supposed to put them together at the places with the same label.
Agreed. But I asked those questions not because I think your reasoning was inherently wrong, but because I felt like you were making a post-hoc story to justify specifically the answer A. While some sort of problem-solving logic that happens to generate A provides fairly easy answers for those kinds of questions, generating A post-hoc does not help answer them.
It would be a pretty bad test of physical intuition of the sort you describe, but a pretty good test of spatial reasoning, and I assume that the army people are competent at designing tests. If it was a test of physical intuition, why change how the objects were attached to each other in each answer? And so on and so forth.
Note: If you asked me "why would they change the relative positions in each answer if it was a test of assembling objects?" I would say "Because changing things around increases the need for spatial reasoning."
I thought the evidence was strong enough to say that pretty confidently, but you're right it's not overwhelming.
Additional note: if you look at the page Unnamed linked to, you'll see that the picture is all one piece, and the instructions are down below in text. If the question we got this picture from was similar, that may explain the disappearing instructions!
Gotcha. I'll edit.
Really? I don't see that at all. Surely B would be more reasonable, in that case? On A, it'd sort of be hanging off to the side.
C is the only answer where the line segment is touching the same spots indicated on the both objects. Point A is on the point of the star, point B is near the little box on the rectangle thing.
The rectangle thing is flipped vertically though (as if in 3D), rather than being rotated in the plane of the 2D drawing.
I don't understand what the question is.
EDIT:
Oh, I see, so that was intentional... well, yes, I suppose I fail then.
What is this test, exactly?
Looking at it without either looking at your answer or noticing the so-called "Correct Answer," I figured it was C. It is C.
I agree the answer seems to be C. I assumed this was a mental rotation style problem, in which case the answer would be C.
Maybe the A and B are not supposed to represent specific points on the objects but the whole object? The question seems bizarre, though the ASVAB is highly regarded amongst psychometricians.
Yeah pretty much.
EDIT: "Yeah pretty much" here means "yes, I agree that the answer is clearly C."