"Finding x"

I recently came across a blog entry from a friend called Ritesh Dahiya( by the way, he has an interesting blog...check that out on http://riteshdahiya.blogspot.com. He has some interesting observations and he also knows how to link youtube videos to his entries!!!). I hope Ritesh won;t mind copying a fantastic picture.Also, I will admit right now that I have never shied away from copying good things around me.

Coming back to the point, there was this very interesting picture on Ritesh's blog. It comes from some exam where the teacher asked the student to find out x given the value of base and altitude. I had a good hearty laugh but then I began to think a little bit. I have been convinced from my 1st semester at IIT, which was close to 10 years back, that I was not going to be an engineer. And there were so many things which were obvious to other people but which I could never understand. Structural Engineering and Engineering Drawing were good examples. MBA, at least, makes so much sense and generates certain amount of interest from deep within. Bottom line, I have had my "Find x" moments and when I laugh at them, it is as much directed towards myself as it is on any one else.

There is another interesting aspect to this problem. I remember an incident which happened with a good friend, Bhupesh Gupta, at IIT in one of the humanities exam. The class was called Moral Literacy and Moral Choices and professor was V.Sanil. One question in the exam asked students to visualise a situation where you are standing outside a lift, it is completely full and you have to reach the 7th floor otherwise you will miss an important class. The question was " How would you convince one person to come out so that you can go in?". Well, Bhupesh wrote down very peacefully that he would say to people inside the lift that there is a bomb on the 7th floor and he needs to go up to diffuse it. Bhupesh was very happy when he came back to the hostel after giving the exam. The question was worth 50% of the exam.

Professor read the answer, wrote " Oh really" at the end of it and then gave a perfect zero to Bhupesh. Well, to some extent professor was right. Bhupesh was supposed to explain how he would approach the problem, find out who are showing signs of getting persuaded and then concentrate his efforts on them. BUT, as in the "finding x" thingy, Bhupesh is also right in some way. Considering the question without any prior context, both Bhupesh and the guy who found x are right. They did answer the question right, just that expectation required understanding the context in which the question was set.