My dictionary says "to judge or form an opinion from things that make
something probable but fall short of sufficient evidence." I think this
matches what most people mean by "guessing" -- it is not a blind guess, they
have a hunch about it, but are not certain about it. And if this is what
Nancy's students understand "guessing" to mean, her telling them not to
guess on the SAT is very poor advice indeed! As Kalat and other have
demonstrated, "guessing" is not usually blind. For example, there are a
number of strategies that examinees can use to get better than chance
performance even when they have no knowlege of the tested material -- for
example, always choosing the longest answer option (Kalat showed that this
strategy works well with the poorly constructed items in typical intro psych
test banks -- I always take care to avoid writing MC questions where this
strategy would pay off)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++ Karl L. Wuensch, Department of Psychology, East Carolina University,
Greenville NC 27858-4353 Voice: 252-328-4102 Fax: 252-328-6283
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/klw.htm
