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Four Ways to Choose Your Tombstone

by Rocko Bonaparte

Some of you students in easy courses have encountered what RIT considers to be a multiple-choice exam. Those of you that haven't are demanding one. You remember they days in high school when one choice was obviously false, and another was obviously true. Those were fun times. The teacher would give credit in any case there was a reasonable dispute, and the arguments were also always brief. But if I meet any of you in any of my classes, and you demand a multiple choice test, I am going to kick your ass. You have not seen the RIT multiple choice test.

Let's start with a fictitious example:

Which one of these is closest to grey?

A. Black
B. White
C. Red
D. Blue

And there are a few situations that happen here. First, you pick white, and the answer is black, or vice versa. However, at RIT, red or blue are potential answers as well. And it's supposed to be blatantly obvious to you, the student. If you wish to argue over it, I suggest bringing combat engineering tools. Professor's pride is mired in land mines, barbed wire, and machine gun nests. Have fun -- I've warned you.

Well now, let's continue with a comprehensive examination of comprehensive multiple-choice examinations:

What is a compiler?

A. A program that generates machine-runnable code.
B. A debugging tool for examining software during run-time.
C. A program that generates intermediate code for a linker.
D. A software benchmarking tool to determine efficiency of certain portions of code.

I would have given answer C there, but it's answer A. Let me explain to folks that aren't familiar. You feed source code into a compiler. It usually generates some more machine-friendly (but not yet final) code for the linker. The linker ties all these portions together into a program you can run. Nowadays, the linker kind of runs in the background, and some folks would never notice it was there until they made some mistakes that would screw it up. My answer seems reasonable, but it obviously isn't.

What is the result of improving cardio-vascular fitness?

A. A more fit and healthy human body.
B. Lower blood pressure and reduced cholesterol in the blood.
C. Greater peace of mind and reduced stress.
D. Increased muscle strength

I had a question like this in the total fitness class, freshman year. I believe it isn't required anymore and thank God.  The correct answer was A! Well duh! Of course it improved cardio-vascular fitness leads to a healthy human body, but so does "preserving my internal bodily fluids."

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