I don't get it. Integers include negative numbers, so -4 and 4 are both integers.
Why would you select C? Because you're assuming the recruiter doesn't know what an integer is, based on the fact that all the answer choices are positive integers?
I think the point was to deliberately choose an example that would be understood by most the readership but sufficiently technical that it might be seen as an ambiguous question to someone less technical.
Reminds me a bit of those facebook clickbait posts "This question is so hard that only 5% of people will get it right"
I actually mean it as a real example. If given this stupid question I would actually, in real life, choose 4 (while knowing it is the incorrect answer.) This is due to the exact phrasing and the other choices given.
I think we'd all agree the correct answer is E, but I had multiple math teachers regrade my tests with higher scores after I pointed out that there were multiple correct solutions to the problem. In several cases, other students had provided the same solution I had but assumed they were wrong because the graded test said so. And these were tests the teachers had used for years. So let's change the question: if you're a student taking this test, how do you make sure that you didn't lose points because the test writers thought that C was the right solution? Or do you just trust public educators to grade you correctly?
Well the incident that sticks out in my memory was actually the kind where you show your work and circle your final answer. And as long as you get that work back and are confident you can then re-check the problem and can appeal with the teacher. That's a little harder to do with multiple choice because you have to replicate how you arrived at the answer you did, but the bigger problem is a general process problem. Standardized tests often don't yield individual results to the test-taker, so you're entirely dependent on the test writers and whatever review they seek out to ensure it's correct. And standardized test writers have been known to have some pretty BS questions (there was an article around where an actual author whose writing was used as material in a standardized test didn't know the answer to the questions being asked of students).
Having tutored my 13-year-old daughter through algebra this school year, a common mistake is flipping this into a square-root problem.
As asked, the question is about mappings ℝ+ → ℝ ⨯ ℝ ∪ {0}. Square root is different, mapping ℝ+ → ℝ+ ∪ {0}. The question could have been sloppily worded or someone trying to make it look more “mathy.”
When I tell my daughter that negative numbers have square roots too and are imaginary, she rolls her eyes and sighs.
Why would you select C? Because you're assuming the recruiter doesn't know what an integer is, based on the fact that all the answer choices are positive integers?