November 9, 2011 at 5:10 am
Wow, very elaborated question.
It made my brain hurt for a second.
I've got 3/4 options right.
I only missed one which should have been basic knowledge to me:
"The amount of space used DOES depend on the fragmentation of the index that supports the PRIMARY KEY constraint."
Thank you for the question.
Best regards,
Best regards,
Andre Guerreiro Neto
Database Analyst
http://www.softplan.com.br
MCITPx1/MCTSx2/MCSE/MCSA
November 9, 2011 at 5:16 am
Hugo Kornelis (11/9/2011)
I must say that the low rate of correct answers surprises me.
The question is reasonably difficult, Hugo. Multi-choice questions also tend to lower the success rate, historically speaking.
Luckily, the text of my question explicitly includes "... used by the table are true". So it is not only, as you say, reasonable to assume that the question is about space for the table being discussed - it is explicitly stated!
FWIW I also assumed the bit about the 'FK index' related to the referenced table, but the question was clear enough that that point did not lead me astray.
Last thing: I didn't see that this question was by you, so I approached it with some element of the usual 'I wonder what the author intended / knew' and selected the wrong answer for the NULL storage bit as a result. I blame an 'expectation hangover' after yesterday's question 🙂
Paul White
SQLPerformance.com
SQLkiwi blog
@SQL_Kiwi
November 9, 2011 at 6:06 am
Sad i know but i was actually quite pleased to have got the right answer on a multi choice with such a low percentage of right answers. I had to really consider the options - really good question.
D
November 9, 2011 at 6:09 am
codebyo (11/9/2011)
Wow, very elaborated question.It made my brain hurt for a second.
I've got 3/4 options right.
I only missed one which should have been basic knowledge to me:
"The amount of space used DOES depend on the fragmentation of the index that supports the PRIMARY KEY constraint."
Same here, including the part wrong. Forgot that primary key generates an index implicitly. Doh. Partial credit? 🙂
Reminds me of my college days, when students would beg for "partial credit". One prof in the dept. would rant loudly, "Partial Credit! Partial Credit! Would you go to a doctor that always got partial credit?" :w00t:
[font="Verdana"]Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.[/font]
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November 9, 2011 at 6:09 am
The only thing that tripped me up was:
The amount of space used DOES depend on the fragmentation of the index that supports the FOREIGN KEY constraint.
I took this to imply that such an index exists. "A-ha! There is no such an index!" is a bit sneaky but fair, I suppose. You did provide the entire table creation script so I can't complain.
ron
-----
a haiku...
NULL is not zero
NULL is not an empty string
NULL is the unknown
November 9, 2011 at 6:38 am
Great question. I got it wrong, because my reading comprehension needs to improve. I saw the foreign keys, the question asked about an index that supports those foreign keys, and I incorrectly made an surmised that the question was assuming the indexes were present, even though they are not implicitly created by the statement. The mistake is mine. You are one of the few question providers whose questions I can take a face value, and I needed to do that here.
Thanks again, and I look forward to your next question.
Matt
November 9, 2011 at 6:41 am
As noted in a previous discussion, I (almost) always look up the subject of the QOTD, due to the interesting little tidbits that I gain on the side. I did so again today, but happily my initial answers were correct (which is not always the case). Looking back, I don't think this was too difficult a question, but I am one of those whose initial reaction to a multiple-answer multiple choice question can't be repeated here. But I will admit that one generally has to understand a multiple-answer multiple choice question in order to be correct rather than simply deducing the correct choice as is often possible with single-answer multiple choice questions. Good question! :satisfied:
November 9, 2011 at 6:43 am
Yeah, in my case I am so used to the indexes being created as a part of making the foreign key that I failed to notice that they weren't part of creating the table here. So that was what caused me to miss this one.
November 9, 2011 at 6:53 am
Thomas Abraham (11/9/2011)
Same here, including the part wrong. Forgot that primary key generates an index implicitly. Doh. Partial credit? 🙂Reminds me of my college days, when students would beg for "partial credit". One prof in the dept. would rant loudly, "Partial Credit! Partial Credit! Would you go to a doctor that always got partial credit?" :w00t:
Hahahaha, priceless! That's a smart teacher.
I really enjoyed the question as it was not too hard as it seemed at first look but we needed to pay attention to detail and lots of text.
Best regards,
Best regards,
Andre Guerreiro Neto
Database Analyst
http://www.softplan.com.br
MCITPx1/MCTSx2/MCSE/MCSA
November 9, 2011 at 7:04 am
This was removed by the editor as SPAM
November 9, 2011 at 8:02 am
Hugo Kornelis (11/9/2011)
I must say that the low rate of correct answers surprises me. I intended this question to be a relatively easy first question in a series (hence the "1" in the title). I have already submitted the second one, and I won't change that - but I'll have to rethink the difficulty level of the remaining planned questions (that I did not submit yet).
The number of ways of answering correctly: 1
The number of ways of answering incorrectly: many
The is no "partially correct" option. I might have complained about mixing 4 different ideas (and their negation) into the multiple-choice answer, but I thought "Grow up, these are professionals we're talking about" 🙂 So I'm sharing this thought to possibly explain why results are skewed to 9% correct.
I think there's also a psychological impact of 8 checkboxes - the answer seems simple enough, but then there's the second-guessing. After that first moment of hesitation, we're much less likely to check all (and only) the right boxes.
Anyway, I admit I was guessing at the answers - but I think this is a great example of an edge case of SQL ServerCentral Question of the Day. Maybe if more questions were written this way we'd be more accustomed to it?
November 9, 2011 at 8:27 am
Nice question Hugo. I got 3 out of 4 right and learned something so I'm happy with that.
November 9, 2011 at 8:39 am
Mike Dougherty-384281 (11/9/2011)
The number of ways of answering correctly: 1The number of ways of answering incorrectly: many
The is no "partially correct" option. I might have complained about mixing 4 different ideas (and their negation) into the multiple-choice answer, but I thought "Grow up, these are professionals we're talking about" 🙂 So I'm sharing this thought to possibly explain why results are skewed to 9% correct.
I think there's also a psychological impact of 8 checkboxes - the answer seems simple enough, but then there's the second-guessing. After that first moment of hesitation, we're much less likely to check all (and only) the right boxes.
Anyway, I admit I was guessing at the answers - but I think this is a great example of an edge case of SQL ServerCentral Question of the Day. Maybe if more questions were written this way we'd be more accustomed to it?
I know multiple-answers questions are not the most popular, but in this case there are four obviously mutually exclusive answer pairs, so you are basically facing four yes/no questions combined into one question. I thought that would not be overly hard. Apparently, I was wrong. 🙂 (It's also intrigueing that for none of the yes/no pairs, the answers given add up to 100% - obviously, there are people who overlook both the "choose 4" in the question and the fact that the options are mutually exclusive so that there have to be four correct answers.
FWIW, the second question in this series will be a single-answer one (albeit with no less than seven options to choose from), and I just submitted the third question as a simple Yes/No question. I'll keep the rest on hold until I know how the second one is received, so that I can adjust the difficulty as needed.
November 9, 2011 at 8:47 am
Hugo Kornelis (11/9/2011)
So it is not only, as you say, reasonable to assume that the question is about space for the table being discussed - it is explicitly stated!
That still didn't stop me make the assumption that it was referring to the other table...:blush:
November 9, 2011 at 8:55 am
Hugo Kornelis (11/9/2011)
... Advance warning as a special service for those who take the time to read the discussion - the next question in this series (scheduled to go live in about a week) will involve some heavy arithmetic!
Oh great, just when we start getting the question authors trained to not turn us into human SQL parsers. Now we have to train them not to turn us into human calculators!!!
Just kidding. 😛
Keep the great questions coming Hugo!
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