Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ora!ambar From: zvs@bby.oz.au (Zev Sero) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: IQ tests Message-ID: <1991Jan28.234342.10420@melba.bby.oz.au> Date: 26 Feb 91 19:17:28 GMT References: <11119@helios.TAMU.EDU> <664152739@grad17.cs.duke.edu> <1991Jan18.174824.21081@odin.corp.sgi.com> <1991Jan21.014257.16464@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <91022.185956RMG3@psuvm.psu.edu> Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz) Organization: Burdett, Buckeridge and Young Ltd. Lines: 33 Approved: ambar@ora.com Bob = RMG3@psuvm.psu.EDU (Bob Grumbine) Bob> My mother encountered a problem on the SAT which asked (roughly) Bob> 'How much grass in fair territory in the infield could a goat on Bob> a 30 foot tether eat?'. Anyone without detailed knowledge of the Bob> layout of a baseball field (such as my mother) has no hope of Bob> answering this one. If presented with that question, I would assume that the `in fair territory in the infield' business was irrelevant misdirection, and the real question was `what is the area of a circle with a radius of 30 feet?', so I would answer `as much grass as covers 9000 x pi square feet'. It's the sort of thing I would expect from that sort of test, to weed out the ones who dredge up their baseball knowledge instead of concentrating on the real question. Could some kind American tell me if I am right? Is the fair territory in the infield (whatever that is) greater than 60 feet across? BTW, if the question really does depend on these details, then the question becomes woefully deficient, because it doesn't specify that the tether is placed anywhere near a baseball field; even if it is, it might be right on the boundary of the said area, so that only half the circle is inside the area; it is not specified how long the goat is left there---not long enough to eat all the grass in reach? long enough for the grass to regrow and be eaten again?---or how big the goat is, etc. I just had a horrible thought---is there any grass at all in the fair territory in the infield? It wouldn't be a concrete area, or one mown and rolled down to nothing, would it? -- Zev Sero - zvs@bby.oz.au This I say unto you, be not sexist pigs. - The prophetess, Morgori Oestrydingh (S. Tepper)