This is from another message board, but since you guys are smarter 
I thought maybe you could shed some light. Thanks in advance.
Smilie
a. mouse
b. snake
c. fish
d. bird
a. inertia
b. energy
c. peanut butter
d. corvette
I’d say “a.” A frog is a modern descendant of a dinosaur. A whale is a modern descendant of a creature that resembled a mouse. Closest I can get.
We will begin our lecture today by examining whether a amphibian can be a descendant of a reptile. What effect have the works of Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg had in confusing modern people?
I don’t think either one of those can be solved without resorting to flawed facts or stretched connections. I am sure that we can make any of the answers work with enough effort but I think they are really just crappy analogies without an answer.
#1 is snake. Frogs have four legs as did dinosaurs. Whales have no legs, like snakes.
#2 isn’t clicking for me yet.
I would suspect that the answer they were looking for here is “mouse,” but as has already been pointed out this is incorrect. Whoever framed the analogy probably thought that frogs were members of the same group as dinosaurs (in the same way that whales and mice are both mammals). Frogs are amphibians, while dinosaurs have traditionally been considered to be reptiles. (However, it might be worth pointing out that, of all the animals listed, birds are the closest relatives to dinosaurs.)
If I wanted to make some strained analogy, both “snake” and “bird” could be construed as a correct answer. This is because frogs belong to a group (Amphibia) that is a sister-group to a group that dinosaurs belong to (Reptilia). Whales belong to a group (Mammalia) that is a sister-group to a group that both snakes and birds belong to (Reptilia).
But I think whoever made the analogy up had no idea what they were talking about.
I don’t believe that a frog is a modern descendant of a dinosaur. I thought that amphibians came first and reptiles branched from them and then had a branch that became dinosaurs.
Remind me. Do fish have two legs or six legs?
My inital guess was c, because the first question was already nutty.
But then I wondered if there’s a typo, and they mean passive: contemplation? Then I’d go with b - doesn’t really fit the analogy, but the only one that makes sense to active, given the choices.
What is this test suppose to measure, anyway? And who designed it?
Stupid thing. Reminds me of the IQ test I hated because one question was to relate things to a “Gasometer”. Since I didn’t know what a Gasometer was, and had never heard of that thing (they are common in the industralised middle part of Germany, I live in the south in Bavaria), I had no idea.
And the correct answer was briefcase. Why? Because both are containers.
I think questions like these don’t measure intellegince, but wooly thinking (like fuzzy logic, only less exact).
Cecil doesn’t think too highly of dumb tests, either. Or bad analogies.
Maybe it’s c - both live in water? :dubious:
The first analogy makes no sense. If I had this on a test I’d pick “mouse”, since I’d guess that’s what the person who dreamed up the question wanted me to pick, a frog is a small member of group X, while a dinosaur is a large member. So a mouse is a small member of group Y, while a whale is a large member. Still sucks, since frogs are not reptiles. And if we insist that there be a phylogenetic group called “reptiles”, dinosaurs, snakes, mice, whales and birds would be members, only fish and frogs would not be members. Or put another way, any sensible group that contains both dinosaurs and snakes must also contain mice, whales and birds. If the analogy was bird:dinosaur:, then the correct answer would unambiguously be “mouse”.
Now:
a. inertia
b. energy
c. peanut butter
d. corvette
I’d guess a, inertia.
Peanut Butter and corvette make absolutely no sense, so they’re out. Energy doesn’t seem to have any connection either. But if you are passive, what you won’t get is completion. If you are active, what you won’t get is inertia.
To nitpick, whales and mice are not a member of the phylogenetic group Reptilia. The synapsid ancestors of mammals branched off from the other early Amniota before any “reptilian” group. Although synapsids have traditionally been referred to as “mammal-like reptiles,” they are not actually part of the clade that contains Reptilia. See here.
But I can’t imagine the person who composed that test being aware of that kind of distinction.
But that has no relation to the first part of the analogy. Frogs live partly on land and partly in the water; dinosaurs lived mostly on land.
[neo]
Whoa.
[/neo]
Dinos are much larger than frogs. Frogs and dinos are each often thought to be members of a particular group which in fact frogs are not a member of, namely, the group “reptiles.” (In fact, dinos aren’t reptiles either, but most people still think of them that way.)
Whales are much larger than fish in general. Whales and fish are each often thought to be members of a particular group which in fact whales are not a member of, namely, the group “mammals.”
So my guess is for choice C.
I cannot fathom this one. “passive:completion” I imagine is making some reference to the fact that in English, superficially similar constructions can stand both for the passive voice and for completed action. (“It was finished” is an example of a sentence which could be read both ways.)
But I can’t imagine how “active:inertia” or “active:energy” could be analogous to that connection. And surely peanut butter and corvette are right out, I hope.
The best I can imagine is that the author has in mind a construction like “I am walking” which is both active and denotative of continuous action. That would make “intertia” the right candidate. But that’s a weird way to think about it.
-FrL-
Unless it’s a word puzzle? Meanings are meaningless, and it has to do with letters or vowells or etymology or something?
(And re: the fish answer, I don’t think so. “Fish” is the group whales are erroneously believed, by some, to be a part of. So if that were the parallel, it would be “reptiles:dinosaurs:
whales.”
That’s as close as I came to a solution too, but it’s not a very satisfying one.
Sorry, there’s some kind of typo in my post. I’ll come back to it tonight to try to recall what I meant to type.
-FrL-
How about
a. mouse
b. snake
c. fish
d. bird
frogs & dinosaurs both hatch(ed) from eggs; whales & mice are born live, unlike (most) snakes, fish & birds
No help, but I have to admit that I’m still laughing–mostly over the question from tomndebb to QED about how many legs fish have.
Well, since many fish and snakes are, in fact, liveborn, I don’t that’s probly the solution either.