Words Mean Things, Part II

Another gem I’d encountered on one of the certification tests last night, contained several questions that were presented thusly:

Q) Is [some question], yes or no?
- True
- False

Clearly [some question] was an actual context-specific question.

I was, for a moment going to answer, in every case, True — because logical reasoning. Of course it’s “yes or no” provided some question was presented.

if [ <some test> ]
then
    <response>
fi

Or, because it’s “or”, we would use a boolean OR statement (the double-pipe, ||) and state it this way:

if [ <a question> ] || [ <the same question> ]
then
    <response>
fi

But social reasoning and compassion prevailed so I answered them.

  • True
  • False
  • False
  • True…