出版社：Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
摘要：The April 1988 test in LIN 333: Structure of English included a short question that turned out to be extraordinarily difficult for most of the 79 students in the course. The three of us marking the test-Peter Avery, John Archibald and me-were at first puzzled by the general ineptitude of the answers to what had seemed a simple question, and spent some minutes talking about what we were finding. Then, as the level of ineptness persisted with no let-up after the tenth or twelfth paper we stopped talking about it, stopped comparing the perhaps-partly-right answers and the desperate stabs-in-the-dark and the profound inanities we were finding. I don't know about the other two, but I was starting to feel a bit anguished by the whole thing. After all, I had set the question with the intention of making it an easy one-the second easiest on the test, I thought–a confidence–booster, a question on which everyone– everyone –should get at least three of the six marks. In 25 years or so of test-setting, I've never been so mistaken.
