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---
id:
aliases: []
tags:
- destiny/fleeting
- topic/estimating
- topic/risk
- type/encyclopedia
title: Calibration Questions
---
# 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)