---
id:
aliases: []
tags: 
  - topic/risk
  - topic/estimating
  - status/fleeting
---
# Calibration Questions

## Examples

### Boolean

> The melting point of tin is higher than the melting point of aluminum.

> In English, the word "quality" is more frequently used that the word "speed".

reductive (used more frequently where?)

> Any male pig is referred to as a hog.

reductive (referred to by whom?)

> California's giant sequoia trees are named for an early 19th century leader of the Cherokee Indians.

reductive

> The Model T was the first car produced by Henry Ford.

reductive (Henry Ford didn't produce cars)

> When rolling 2 dice, a roll of 7 is more likely than a 3.

facile

> No one has ever been reported to have been hit by any object that fell from space.

reductive (reported by whom?)

> Sir Christopher Wren was a British anthropologist.

> Pakistan does not border Russia.

unnecessary negative form, otherwise good.

> The Navy won the first Army-Navy football game.

should specify the official event name, otherwise good.

> The paperback version of the book "The Da Vinci Code", as of July 2007, still ranks in the top 500 bestselling books on Amazon.

obtuse phrasing, dated topic, otherwise good

> Italian has more words than any other language.

reductive (what is a word? what dialect?)

> The month of August is named after a Greek god.

borderline facile, reductive

> The deepest ocean trench is deeper than the Grand Canyon.

facile

> Abraham Lincoln was the first president born in a log cabin.

deceptive phrasing

> As of July of 2007, more people search Google for  "Harry Potter" than "Hillary Clinton" (according to GoogleTrends).

obtuse phrasing, dated topic, otherwise good

> The population of Alabama is higher than the population of Arizona.

borderline facile, deceptive phrasing

> No category 5 hurricane hit the US in 2004.

> The UK is among the top 10 largest economies in the world (by GDP).

> The movie Forest Gump has grossed more to date than E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.

obtuse phrasing, dated topic, otherwise good

### Interval

> What percentage of bronze is typically made of copper?

reductive

> How many countries have at least one McDonald's?

As of when?

> How many employees did eBay have in the first quarter of 2006
> What was the population of Miami (within the city limits, not the entire metropolitan area) in 1990?
> How many casualties did the French suffer in the Battle of Waterloo?
> What is the range in miles of a Minuteman Missile?
> What is the percentage of IT jobs in the US were unfilled in 1997?
> The Supremes' (with Diana Ross) song "Stop! In the Name of Love" was how long? (minutes, seconds)
> How many undergraduates attended Cambridge in 1990?
> If you could jump 50 feet straight up into the air, how many seconds would you be airborne before you landed?
> How many gallons are in a bushel (they are both measures of volume)?
> How many sovereign rulers has England had in the last thousand years?
> If the air temperature was 5 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) and the wind speed was 15 mph, what would the temperature adjusted for wind-chill be?
> Average cost of testing in software development is what percentage of total project costs?
> On average, if a software development project was projected to take 17 months, it actually takes how many months?
> How many meters tall is the Sears Tower?
> How many gold medals did Jesse Owens win at the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
> In 2005, the average combined MPG for all US cars and light trucks on the road was how much?
> The average house in the United States uses how many gallons of water per day?
> What was the average price in the United States of a house sold in 2001?

## Writing Good Calibration Questions

A good calibration question should not feel like it could be a "trick" question.

Definitions/terminology are _always_ contentious,
questions based on them always feel deceptive.

Interval "questions" should describe the quantity
rather than phrase it as a question.

## Strategy for Answering Calibration Questions

Confidence should never be less than probability of picking randomly
(50% for true)
