Exam MLC is an odd combination of life contingencies, properties of aggregate distributions and Markov Chains so goes back and forth between old retiring, old people walking picking up coins and old people dying.  There’s always a medium sample question where you have a bunch of old farts and you’re asked to determine the likelihood they’ll all die.  The group isn’t large enough to assume normal distribution of deaths nor small enough that you can grind it out by hand in a reasonable period of time so you have to use stupid tricks that all start “assume seven people are one person” but somehow work.  This one involved auto accidents and having no idea how to solve it swiftly wanted to put: “Probably that all 20 will die auto accidents before they’re 85 = 100%.  Bus accident.”  I know, I know.  I’ll revolutionize risk management.

There was a question that I’m pretty sure was written in doublespeak and no matter how many times I read it I couldn’t make it out.  It was something to the tune of “given accidents occur with the following intensity (equation) where each accident involves at least one victim, what’s the minimum average number of victims per accident.”
1) Minimum average is like saying “exact approximation” in that the words are fine next to each other but mean nothing.
2) Would the minimum be 1?  Almost all the answer were less than one.  Unless they were saying accident victims had it coming and should be counted as people.

The actual exam was fun if one enjoys being frisked for black market calculators and shims of paper.  The next exam will probably involve either a cavity search or a polygraph test.

Hazaa to professional development.

We had presentations today in BA 4196, goody.  The teacher spent the session staring at us unhappily and I spent the session looking quizzically at poorly wrought PowerPoint presentations.  At then end, the group answered a question really poorly and the teach popped.   While I hate it while it happens I love it after the fact when a teacher blows up.  In particular I like two speeches:

1) My generation is superior to you generation
2) You’re undervaluing this useless and valueless material

There’s also the “Your ethnicity is inferior to mine” speech but that can only be implied and generally comes from grizzled Soviet bloc mathematicians.  This professor wins the award for being the first instructor to give both in one semester!  He beats out my stat professor who did both but over two semesters.  He even walked out angrily two minutes before the regular end time of the class.

Later, I got my test back in Act Sci 3505 and there was a rare instance where I bit my tongue.  I had been out the previous week and after reviewing the test angrily told a classmate that the 2 points I received off for failing to explain an answer properly robbing me of a 90.  He said he’d lost 30 points for similar things and was unsuccessful arguing it.  His grade was a 50 while the class averages was 48.  Whew…

Before our Act Sci 3503 test, we were all looking around prepared for the ogive-drench Nelson-Aalen estimator induced death march.  I looked at the guy next to me and asked him to show me his game face.  Nothing… I asked the guy to the right of me, and he look stern faced.  I started making my way around the room and finally got a solid “grr…” after some prodding.  Then, we got to the Asian TA who without provocation clenched his fists, winced his eyes and gave a resounding “raaaaaw”.  That broke the tension nicely.

We discussed interview dress today in BA 2101 and the teacher mentioned that if you’re interviewing for marketing or buying for a clothier you should wear their attire to the interview.  I immediately burst out laughing.  The teacher asked what was so funny and responded “Speedo”.

It was going to say Victoria’s Secret, which is what I was thinking but between the feminist majority bitch in the 2nd row and the fact that they’re trying to become a dresswear firm I opted against it

Later the term “butter mustache” came up but I can’t remember under what context and a somehow that got combined with hummus to make a Dirty Sanchez.  I fell asleep during this, so I may have missed something

While reviewing for my Stat 212 exam I was reminded of how competence related to statistical calculus is so much lower than other areas.  In Acct 0002 I smile if I complete a quiz perfectly, in Stat 212 I throw a small party if the solution I get to a probability function includes at least 1 real number.

I was reviewing for my Soc 0064 American Ethnicities exam and was worried that discriminatory lending was the only case of discrimination without prejudice that I could come up with.  Worried that this was insufficient I smiled when I saw the 2nd test question started out with “John works at a bank and cannot lend to those with bad credit, which may overproportionately affect African Americans, this is an example of”.  I got a few glances as I pumped my fists wildly.

Today I mourned the loss of an iron-clad rule of test-taking: that the answer to a multiple choice question must fit grammatically into the question.  For instance, if the question is “Jill decided to fellate, or ____ the officer rather than getting the speeding ticket.” And the possible answers are Vermillion, Perform Fallatio, Running, and Wenkle Rotary Engine, it’s easy to rule out the 1st and 4th as they answer must be a verb.  Not so when your instructor is from the land of curry and the Bhagavad-Gita.  Anything goes!  Question: “_____ allow the manager to properly sources costs to its maker.”  Answer? Cost-Allocation Systemizes!