<p>Or, alternatively, it’s back to “snake,” because the pattern in the number of letters in each word is: 3, 4, 5, 5, 7.</p>
<p>…then could be giraffe because it’s out of alpha sequence, CDMSG.</p>
<p>“cow, deer, moose, snake, giraffe - which doesn’t belong?”</p>
<p>Snake: not a mammal, has zero feet (instead of four). Lacks hooves.</p>
<p>Complain about the SAT all you want; at least each question has only one right answer.</p>
<p>Cow: the only one that lacks natural camouflage.</p>
<p>Deer: the only one that was a title character in a Disney movie.</p>
<p>Moose: the only ones that swim (excepting water moccasins and a few other snakes). </p>
<p>Snake: the only one in which the male lacks horns or ossicones. </p>
<p>This game is fun!</p>
<p>Is there a name for this sort of logic quest?</p>
<p>I also like “deer,” because if the words are written in all capital letters, it is the only one where the final letter lacks a symmetry element (except for the plane of the paper itself).</p>
<p>Other suggestions are also great! Ossicones! That’s clearly the key to selecting the unique item.</p>
<p>Ooh, I have another one, which relies on regarding W as “double-vay” as in the German alphabet. Then it’s back to “snake” as the only one that lacks a double letter.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I really like #22!</p>
<p>No, they don’t always reflect knowledge of the subject matter and I think the results go both ways. D can know the subject fairly well and still get 75% on tests. In her case, I think her reading LD can affect the outcome. She also out-thinks some questions.</p>
<p>S1, however, tests extremely well, whether he knows the material or not.</p>
<p>Spent the day at a conference for people who work in the language testing business, and I can summarize the official answer for you: No test tests what the authors intend. If the author is lucky, the test measures something that is more or less related to what they had hoped to measure. And if they are really lucky, they can demonstrate just how close they got with a whole bunch of fancy statistics. </p>
<p>But to go back to the original question from the OP. There was a specific mention that the student does better with extra time. So I would encourage the OP to trot that child in to the school psychologist’s office, and request that an assessment be set up for previously unidentified learning disabilities. That this student is good orally, and when there is plenty of time makes me think that there may be a processing speed issue that is messing things up.</p>
<p>And I would have chosen “snake” too.</p>
<p>“deer.” It’s the only one that also spells a word when the letters are listed backwards.</p>
<p>This problem was so bad for DS1 that, in 9th grade, he decided to use AP tests as placement tests. He would take the AP’s for classes he hadn’t taken yet. If he made a 4 or 5, he didn’t take the class. If he made a 3, he took the class the next year. I think he only made two 3s and colleges didn’t seem to care that he hadn’t taken the corresponding classes. He never took AP Chem, but applied and was accepted as a Chem/Chem Eng major at some Top 15 schools. Sometimes, ya’ gotta do what ya’ gotta do. ;)</p>
<p>I should give you the list of weapons where you had to pick one that didn’t belong. My recollection was that you were supposed to pick the one you didn’t throw, but of course there was one that wasn’t made of metal…</p>
<p>When dh taught histology at med school they would graph every students answer and if the “good” students got the right answers and the “bad” students didn’t they knew it was a good question. I think if they determined a question was sufficiently bad they threw it out.</p>
<p>I recall an IQ-type test I took in 8th grade, where the “pick the one that does not belong” choices were: butterfly, book, door hinge, jar lid.
I suspect the “correct” answer was “jar lid.” However, I think that a really strong argument could be made for “butterfly.” I would be further willing to guess that if “jar lid” was indeed the correct answer, then this question had a large gender differential.</p>
<p>One of QMP’s mix-ups occurred on what I believe was a standardized test, in 3rd grade. (Sorry to those who have seen this before). The students were supposed to identify the synonym of “scold.” QMP picked “teach” rather than “find fault,” on the grounds that if Person A was scolding Person B, then Person A had already–previously–found fault with Person B, and was now trying to teach Person B.</p>
<p>In 2nd grade, they read a story about a kitten who fell through thin ice, and was rescued wet and shivering. After the kitten was rescued, the kitten was–QMP’s choice–“taught.”</p>
<p>You know, the teachers seemed like such pleasant people. It’s only in retrospect that I wonder . . .</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Like this list?</p>
<p>dart
throwing knife
boomerang
shuriken
sword
atomic bomb</p>
<p>Gawd, I hated those life or death stories. What do you teach a 2nd grader with the image of a desperate and frightened kitten? The value of good deeds, I guess. </p>
<p>Jar lid would have stymied me because the type wasn’t specified. First thought was that jar lids screw on, not fold open. Except maybe those Mason jars with hinges. But they didn’t say…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously snake. The others are all even-toed ungulates.</p>
<p>Or, or to simplify things, snake is the only carnivore.</p>
<p>Then again it could be moose, which is the only subset of another member of the set. A moose is, taxonomically speaking, a type of deer, or Cervidae. Or, by similar logic, it could be deer, which is the only member of this set of terms to include another member (moose) as a subset.</p>
<p>Moose is also the only one of these not found in Africa.</p>
<p>Or it could be cow, which is the only gendered noun in the group. A cow is an adult female of various species of large mammals, including bovines, whales, walrus, and elephants, among others. An adult female moose is a cow, lending further support to this answer as, unlike the other terms, “cow” is not a taxonomic classification at all but rather a term used to refer to adult females of various species.</p>
<p>On the other hand, “cow” is also used colloquially to refer to domesticated bovines of either gender and any age. That also makes “cow” unique among this group of terms insofar as it is, when used in referring to animals, much more ambiguous than the others. When referring to animals, “moose” always refers to a particular species, Alces alces; '“giraffe” also refers to a particular species, Giraffa camelopardis; “deer” refers to the taxonomic family Cervidae; “snake” refers to members of the suborder Serpentes. “Cow,” however, refers either to a member of a domesticated breed of the species Bos primiginius taurus; or to adult females of that species; or to adult females of a larger but somewhat random set of large mammals. </p>
<p>If we take it into the cultural realm, however, “deer” may be the outlier. The other terms are all used colloquially as pejoratives to describe by analogy certain traits culturally deemed to be undesirable in humans. Thus “cow” is used to describe a physically unattractive and often large female. “Moose” is used to describe a large and clumsy person, usually but not always male. “Giraffe” is used to describe an awkwardly tall person. “Snake” is used to describe a devious, duplicitous, and untrustworthy person. “Deer,” on the other hand, appears to have no such negative connotations, at least not as a freestanding term. There is, of course, the phrase “deer in the headlights,” used to refer to a person caught unawares and paralyzed by fear, but you need to add “in the headlights” to carry that connotation. On the flip side, one who “runs like a deer” is being praised for uncommon grace, speed, and athleticism. The term “deer” in itself carries neither negative nor positive connotations, and is rarely used to refer to humans. </p>
<p>Gosh, I’m confused. But maybe I’m overthinking it.</p>
<p>In college, I took a test where the professor told me," Your answer is correct, but it wasn’t the one I was thinking of." And that was it.</p>
<p>I used to be a great test taker, and was kind of snotty about the idea that you could be smart and yet not be a great test taker. I scoffed at the idea of “trick questions”. Many years and two kids later, I recant. Both of my kids have different thought processes, but I also think that test questions have grown increasingly sloppy. Giraffe? B%&@h Please.</p>
<p>
I could make an argument for door hinge in the grounds that it is the one that you would fix to something that wouldn’t be moving about to other locations. Book, of course as the one whose purpose is to be read. This is a fun game.</p>
<p>As to the OP, maybe when it comes to physics (what I teach) the tests are more likely to reflect what the kid knows (or doesn’t!).</p>