(Slightly) Bad Question On Today's Show - Geometry

[TheConfessor]

I just flipped on the TV in time to see one of the last questions. It asked which time on a standard clock results in a right angle between the minute hand and the hour hand. The "correct" choice was A) 4:05. That would be true if the big hand were on the 1 and the little hand were on the 4, but that's not the actual position at 4:05. At 5 minutes past any hour, the hour hand has moved one-twelfth of the way toward the next hour, or 2.5 degrees. So at 4:05, the hands on a clock form a 92.5 degree angle, not a 90 degree angle. Sloppy writing strikes again!

[Bob Juch]

Yeah, but they say to pick the best answer even if it's not the right answer.

[TheConfessor]

Yeah, but they say to pick the best answer even if it's not the right answer.

But why write a question that is wrong in the first place? It's easy enough to find a time on the clock that is actually a right angle. Or to ask what time forms a 92.5 degree angle.

[jarnon]

It's easy enough to find a time on the clock that is actually a right angle.

3:00, 9:00 and 4:05:27 come to mind.

[Estonut]

The question writers probably only have practical experience with digital clocks...

[Bob Juch]

You didn't mention the shoutout to Peahen?

[Estonut]

You didn't mention the shoutout to Peahen?

Was it one of the last questions?

[Bob Juch]

You didn't mention the shoutout to Peahen?

Was it one of the last questions?

Nope, Melissa Del Toro's 4th.

[talkinaway]

I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to notice this error - fortunately, all the other answers were completely off. I can understand the idea of choosing the "best answer" in terms of questions that have a small faction who debate the mainstream (ie "What playwright wrote 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'?" when you may have a vocal minority claiming it's not Shakespeare).

In this case, you can easily work out that 4:05 is the wrong answer in your head, because 4:05 WOULD be a right angle if the 4 o'clock hand didn't move ahead, which it does. There's not much wiggle room that all answers are wrong. The easy fix would be to reference that in the question - "At what time does the angle come CLOSEST to being a right angle?" No debate there.

Actually, this could have been a decent 100K question (or maybe one of the "lifeline chewers" in the shuffle round) if they had the options as 4:05:27, 4:04:33, 4:05:00, 4:06:05.

I just have a big thing for writing the questions correctly - that said, I imagine the question writers easily churn out thousands of questions per season, so it's understandable. My other peeve is when they ask a question "Which of the following Xs is also a Y?", and one of the options isn't an X to begin with.