At 11:33 AM 1/16/01 -0400, you wrote:
>> 37. When Matt's and Damien's broad jumps were measured accurately to
>> the nearest foot, each measurement was 21 feet. Which statement best
>> describes the greatest possible difference in the lengths of Matt¹s
>> jump and Damien's jump?
>>
>> A. One jump could be up to 1/4 foot longer than the other.
>> B. One jump could be up to 1/2 foot longer than the other.
>> C. One jump could be up to 1 foot longer than the other.
>> D. One jump could be up to 2 feet longer than the other.
>>
>> END QUESTION TEXT
"nearest" in this context implies ... that if it were closer to 20 than 21
... it would be called 20 ... or, closer to 22 than 21 ... it would be
called 22 ... SO, this has to mean (unless one is doing some weird
extrapolations) that ... there is some dividing point between 20 and 21 ...
and 21 and 22 ... and that dividing point is in the middle between the two ...
so, one person could have been 20.5001 ... rounded to 21 and the other
could have been 21.4999 ... rounded to 21 ... so, the biggest difference
would be 1 foot
of course, this only makes sense if we assume that rounding to the nearest
has meaning ... but if it does ... then i don't know any other choice than
C that could be construed as being correct
>
>
> I guess I don't see any problem with this. "Accurately to the nearest
>foot" does not mean the same thing as "to within one foot" or "to an
>accuracy/tolerance of plus or minus one foot" which I suppose yields the
>canonical wrong answer. The use of the word "nearest" is crucial.
==============================================================
dennis roberts, penn state university
educational psychology, 8148632401
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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