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Tester Quiz

A short post today because I am pushing all the work over to you! <g/> How many answers to "38.30 - 1 1/2 = ???" can you think of? Here are a few to get you started:

36.80 (assuming both are decimal numbers)
36.30 (assuming minutes.seconds)
An error message that "38.30" is an invalid number in the current locale (assuming the current locale treats the period as a thousands separators rather than a decimal point)

Post your answers in the comments!

Published Wednesday, May 30, 2007 9:30 AM by micahel

Filed under: Becoming A Tester, Testing

Comments

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 1:51 PM

So, this one is a little far out but say we collapses all spaces in a math equation.. the answer then would be 32.8 (39.30-5.5)

or, say order of operations is addition/substraction before mult/div and the spaces are dropped... we get 13.65 via (38.30-11)/2

Matt

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 2:12 PM

*A parser error, some locales don't use the period mark at all(for instance, scandinavian languages)

*36 - assuming int as datatype, C# as language

*37 - assuming int as datatype, vb.net as language(vb.net uses bankers rounding, totally messed up)

Hmmm... maybe not enough coffee yet. Can't think of any more...

Erling Paulsen

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:04 PM

33.30 (assuming whitespace is ignored and '1 1/2' evaluates to an integer)

32.80 (assuming whitespace is ignored and '1 1/2' evaluates to a decimal)

37.30 (assuming '1/2' evaluates to an integer)

Scott

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:09 PM

38.30-1 1/2

Hi Michael,

I was think on post at night but.. I presume that Michael Bolton or James Bach where about to post here with: "What is the context?" and thats right, there are multiple answers and one valid for the context .. ;)

one of the multiples ones is to assume that the dot is in the context a multiplication operator so:

38.30 - 1 1/2 = 1140 - 1 1/2 = 1138 1/2 (aka. 38x30 - 1.5 = 1140 - 1.5 = 1138.5)

Another thing is to presume that the calculator or the input innores the space character so it translate as: 38.30 - 11/2 and then the answer is 32.8

and so on...

Jose Alejandro Betancur

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:43 PM

Wouldn't 38:30 be 38 minutes 30 seconds, which is 38.5 minutes? If you subsection 1 1/2 minutes, the result would be 37 minutes, right?

larmccoy

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 7:36 PM

larmccoy: You're right, my math was completely wrong on that one!

micahel

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 10:21 PM

* parser error: 1 1/2 is not valid in many programming languages

* degree-minute-second format

38.3 - 1 1/2 = 37 degrees

Valentin Iliescu

# re: Tester Quiz @ Thursday, May 31, 2007 1:39 PM

Apart from all of the above - my take:

38.30 - 1 1/2 = 38.30 - 1 1/2

Completely depends what and where I am working on! I work on a software called SAS, where they have a feature called macro variables. If you assign a macro variable to 38.30 - 1 1/2, it treats everything as text and the final result is going to be exactly what you pass to it.

Apoorva

# re: Tester Quiz @ Thursday, May 31, 2007 9:06 PM

No one has said what base we're working in. Sure you can assume base10 and the equation itself implies at least 8 digits - but infinite possibilities still remain.

Pierzapin

# re: Tester Quiz @ Friday, June 01, 2007 3:42 AM

Try to input 38.30 - 1 1/2 into IE address bar.

# re: Tester Quiz @ Friday, June 01, 2007 5:25 AM

MS Word Zoom percentage gives “This is not a valid measurement”

Excel gave 36.8 while it converted 11/2 as 1.5

Google gave it 36.8 while it interpreted 38.30 - (1 1/2) = 36.8

MSN gave 32.8 considering 11/2 as 5.5

Yahoo search engine treats it as a string input and gives the results like “Filson Bridle Belt 1 1/2" 30-38"”

Basic Calculator at www.math.com does not recognize it as a valid arithmetic expression

Space between 1 and 1/2 makes a difference in Excel again. One space would give 36.8 while more than one space would give a formula error proposes a correction as 11/2

38.30-1 ½ - this fraction character when copied to excel gives formula error

Shrini

# re: Tester Quiz @ Saturday, June 02, 2007 1:02 AM

Michael, this is a trick question...right?

I wouldn't even begin to waste my time trying to come up with answers to this problem, because they would simply be wild-ass guesses.

But, I could come up with a lot of questions! :-)

If I asked this question in an interview, and the person being interviewed just started throwing out wild-ass guesses without asking some very smart precision questions to better define the problem space I frankly wouldn't be very impressed. But, that is my opinion.

I.M.Testy

# re: Tester Quiz @ Sunday, June 03, 2007 4:20 AM

my take in different contexts:

* 37.00(assuming hours.minutes)

* 36.8(assuming only the last one digit after decimal is considered)

* 36.8(assuming white space after decimal is considered as zero)

* 736/20 or 184/5 (answer in terms of fraction)

* 36 4/5 or 18 4/10 or 9 4/20 or 3 4/60 or 1 4/180(answer interms of mixed fraction)

Bhargavi

# re: Tester Quiz @ Sunday, June 03, 2007 9:14 AM

Likewise I can think of few more answers

3680*(10^-2) or 368.0*(10^-1) or 3.680*(10) or 0.3680*(10^2) and so on..depending on the context.

Bhargavi

# re: Tester Quiz @ Sunday, June 03, 2007 1:08 PM

Testy et al: Yes this is a trick question. And it isn't. In a "'test this" situation, I would indeed expect a bunch of questions about context, as you and Alejandro suggest. In a brainstorming situation, however, I generally leave the discussion wide open, as too many constraints can eliminate ideas before they ever thought. (And yes, even then there is *some* context.)

Thanks for calling me out! I will be more precise next time.

micahel

# re: Tester Quiz @ Sunday, June 03, 2007 5:12 PM

My Answers:

* 18.65 ( assuming 38.30 -1 = 37.30 and then 37.30 * .5 = 18.65)

* 37.00(assuming hours and minutes)

* 36.80 (assuming both are decimal numbers)

* 33.30 ( assuming 1 1/2 is treated as 11/2 which is truncated to 5)

* 37 29.5 (assuming Kms and mts...First would turn out to be 38 Km 30 mts and second one will be 1 Km and .50 mts)

* 32.80 (assuming space is ignored and '1 1/2' evaluates to a decimal)

Madhukar Jain

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, June 06, 2007 3:07 AM

36.8 - If both are decimal

Feb 5, 1990 7:12pm - if both are days

(38.30 - 31 = 7.30; i.e. 7Feb .30 day

7.30 - 1.5 = 5.8; i.e. 5 Feb .8 day

i.e. 5 feb .8*24 = 5 feb 19.2 hrs

i.e. 5 feb 19hrs .2*60 mins

i.e. 5 feb 19 hrs 12 mins)

36 4/5 - if its a fraction calculation

3.68E+01 - if its a scientific calculation

Neelam

# re: Tester Quiz @ Wednesday, June 06, 2007 12:10 PM

If the calculator is Reverse Polish Notation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation)

Then the entries are

- (at this point the result is -38)

1 1

When you get to '1 1' an error is given that its not a number.

If that error is ignored by the calculator or a script in the case of automating the operations ; the calculation will become

Which assuming all stack values are zero to start with becomes

/ (at this point the result is 0 => (0 / (0 -38))

Which gives the answer of 2 because the 2 entered at the end.

Travis

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