A prime example of systematic measurement error
An old roommate, TheHistorian, is a third grade teacher. Her students are an interesting group: One little boy was caught chasing his classmates around the playground trying to put purple eyeshadow on their faces (the next day, despite a talking-to, he repeated the performance with lipstick). Another boy purposely drew pictures of people stabbing polar bears, because he wanted to incite a murderous rage within the breast of his classmate "Jordan," who loves polar bears.
TheHistorian called me the other night with a story that had me in tears of laughter, because I am a measurement nerd. I'm paraphrasing her words; the story is as follows:
"Our school is administering the [state standardized test]. Some of the sections are listening, which means that I read a passage and they answer questions. One of the passages was a story about 'Polly the Penguin' and 'Fernando the Frog.' Midway through the story, Jordan stood up and said loudly, 'But Miss [Historian], that could NEVER HAPPEN! Penguins and frogs can't be friends. They don't even occupy the same habitat!'
"This kid is also obsessed with polar bears, and all the other kids know it. In a different section of the test, they had a multiple choice question where one of the answer choices was 'polar bear.' During that section, he loudly blurted, 'Wow, one of my favorite animals is one of the answers. Too bad it's not the right one.'"
TheHistorian called me the other night with a story that had me in tears of laughter, because I am a measurement nerd. I'm paraphrasing her words; the story is as follows:
"Our school is administering the [state standardized test]. Some of the sections are listening, which means that I read a passage and they answer questions. One of the passages was a story about 'Polly the Penguin' and 'Fernando the Frog.' Midway through the story, Jordan stood up and said loudly, 'But Miss [Historian], that could NEVER HAPPEN! Penguins and frogs can't be friends. They don't even occupy the same habitat!'
"This kid is also obsessed with polar bears, and all the other kids know it. In a different section of the test, they had a multiple choice question where one of the answer choices was 'polar bear.' During that section, he loudly blurted, 'Wow, one of my favorite animals is one of the answers. Too bad it's not the right one.'"
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