As part of my job profile, I’m assisting a group (1400 people) to pass regulatory exams. After a year of cajoling, pleading and repeated failures, I’m down to 17 people still needing to pass the exam. This lot has now written the exam in excess of eight times each and they still fail. The deadline for them passing or being debarred from their positions is end March and I’m increasingly frustrated as they are skewing my statistics (not to mention possible bonus).
They are all extremely despondent because of their inability to pass this particular examination. The exam itself is logic based and monkey puzzle in format, its the logic (or perhaps the lack of it) that seems to be the real problem here.
A couple weeks ago I decided to phone the individuals a day prior to their examination and “praat moed in” in an attempt to lift the spirits and to at least get them to the venue with some sort of hope to pass. At any rate, I started with one rather sensitive lady and to get my foot in the door, told her that I felt compelled to phone her and tell her about it. I told her that I dreamt that she passed the exam and received a result of 78% in it. I repeated this story with 5 ladies with different passmarks (made up randomly).
Here’s the co-incidence or mindf*ck - three of the five passed with the “predicted” mark… Its fascinating to speculate whether it is just a random fluke, or whether my “predictions” somehow got stuck in their subconcious and the end result was influenced by my sprouting nonsense. All five did pass, albeit the other two didnt receive my predicted marks.
Skewed statistics can be a headache! It’s curve is unsymmetrical, not very neat, and just looks unprofessionally lob-sided. To return an ailing statistic to it’s enviable former shape, a firm hand and no mercy is needed. First, take an eraser. I recommend one of those slightly gritty rubbers that artists use, as they make short work of most inks. Now remove the most unflattering half of the curve by lightly brushing the line with the eraser. Avoid excessive pressure, as you do not want to bore through the page. There is nothing like a hole in the middle of an otherwise perfect Gaussian distribution to cause raised eyebrows. Then get on your bike, go to the CNA and buy what is known as a Flexicurve. Mold the Flexicurve to the same shape as the remaining half of the statistics, then flip it around and retrace the other side.
Your statistics will now be unskewed, and your bonus sould remain intact.
Hmmm…interesting. Perhaps I should try this trick at work. I am a Business Analyst so it might also get my @$$ fired.
Seriously though, I have found that results such as this have a pretty close relation to the placebo effect. In essence when one feels positive one performs better. It is not magic just human nature
Exactly right in three out of the five cases, relatively close on the other two. I cant wait for the next set of results due on Monday to see if there are more weird results!
Bwhahahahaha!! you gotta love this!
You are clearly a witch. Lucky this is a sceptics website, or you'd probably be dunked in the nearest pond
I did quite well in the psychic thread, didnt I???