Red Grass
Now whether it's a "True" or "False" statement of fact is another question (which would require tracking down the agent)...but that wasn't the question asked in this exam.
Exactly. For example, one of the questions on the test may have been:
"Grass is red."
This is a statement of fact, not an opinion, despite being obviously false.
"Grass is more pretty than trees." would be an opinion.
Another story to make the original poster feel better. I was applying for a doctoral program. I had to do a "writing on demand" which involved answering questions (in essay form) about an article.
The most significant questions were to:
a) explain the author's opinion
b) discuss whether or not I agree with his opinion and why.
Unfortunately, the moron who chose the article I got chose an article where the author was simply describing FACT. He was describing approaches that some organizations were taking to address a problem. At no point in the entire article did he express any opinion as to if any of these approaches were effective or moral.
Which leaves you in a real predicament. The only valid way to answer those questions was to say, "the author of this article chose to describe a few approaches currently being taken by organizations to address the problem. At no point in this article did he attempt to address the effectiveness or morality of these approaches. Since the author did not make his opinion known, this question cannot be answered."
Hoping that it was a "trick" question all along. Or, I could have chosen to ignore the fact that I knew better and to assume that, because the author chose these examples, these were examples he agreed with, and write the essay accordingly.
Well, I did the right thing. Which I was later told was the wrong choice.
Life isn't easy. Sometimes you're brighter than the people who have power over you.
