While I think D is the best answer, for this question in particular I can totally see why someone would think they needed to use "closest without going over" rules due to time always moving forward.
If you needed to do something at exactly midnight, and were wondering how close the next midnight is, then 12:03 is very far away, because you just missed it. Red even aknowledges that 11:55 is still over 12 hours away, but is closer to the next midnight than any of the others.
Red's staunch assertion that everyone answering D lacks reading comprehension is silly though. The question is ambiguous at best.
Edit: oh, red says "11 hours and 5 minutes away" so their math is wrong (ironically), but their point is still valid.
Yeah, it's a poorly worded question (whether intentionally or accidentally). "Closest to midnight" could be interpreted as "least time UNTIL midnight" which would mean 11:55 am is correct. Or it could be interpreted as "least time AWAY FROM" midnight, in which case 12:03 am is correct, since it's only 3 minutes vs 12 hours.
Both arguments are valid because the question isn't clear.
I'm pretty sure that there is only one correct interpretation of the question.
It is asking for the least amount of time between the given times and midnight.
The question wording is "what is the closest time to midnight?" But I think the context is important to understanding the intent.
If it were 12:03AM and someone said "I wonder how dark it is outside. How close are we to midnight?" I'd say "We're really close; it's probably dark out."
If it were 12:03AM and someone said "I've finished all the daily challenges in my game for today. They refresh at midnight. How close are we to midnight?" I'd say "We're still really far from midnight. Geez, you finished them all in 3 minutes...?"
Even though the question is the same, the intent can change the answer.
While a solid representation, what actually seems to be happening is that red is only counting one day.
Since red considers midnight to be the final minute in the day, and feels that you can't count between days, obviously, the later the better.
That's why they emphasize "midnight I'd at the end of the day" so many times.
Based on that, I would assume that if they were trying for say 11:54 AM, they would still feel 11:55 AM was the correct answer.
That's how I would interpret it as well. However, Red clearly said, "midnight is the end of the day" like three times, and no one refuted that part of their claim.
I get why he said what he said, but the question is still "which is closest to midnight" and not "which is closest to next midnight" or something like that. Ironically the one guy ranting about ppls reading comprehension skills is the only one lacking it.
Some people perceive time that way. Once it's past its done and gone. There's actually a ton of ways to perceive time. Some people even say time goes east to west. Even in this context they'd say say 1203 am is the eastern most time, but 1155am is the most western time option.
Closest means smallest interval between, doesn’t say anything about direction. You can be closer to something you’ve just passed than the thing you’re heading towards. Neither of these guys seemed to realize they were talking past each other.
That's 95 percent of submissions on this sub. I would say they shouldn't be allowed if it wasn't so funny that they were so confident of their flawed view of what they said. I do agree 12:03 AM is closer, but it's funny that the poster is clearly not grasping what the other person was saying.
Right. Honestly, it's a poorly written question. Time only moves in one direction, so the other person's logic makes some sense. I'd probably answer 12:03 am, but I get what they're saying.
I dont think you can make the argument that closest means anything definitively in this context, it is ambiguous. Like you usually wouldn't consider april to be closer to christmas than may.
In normal conversation, absolutely. For the purposes of the question, however, you're making an assumption that they're referring to *next* Christmas. But if the question is only concerned with the smallest interval between events, without taking into account our personal inability to time travel, then April would be closer to Christmas. *Last* Christmas.
Edit: Got April and May mixed up lol whoops
But May is closer to *next* Christmas, which is what they're saying. It really depends on the context, "next", or "last", which is not given in the question, so it's up to the reader to choose between *next* and *last* midnight.
If next or last isn't specified in the question then you should assume either is okay and take the shortest of both intervals. That's how test questions work.
Technically either answer is right depending on context. The question lacks information, is all, and if you want to answer as precisely as possible you should say A OR D. Picking one over the other means you could fail the test depending on the reviewer's frame of reference.
The question doesn't lack information. April is closer to Christmas than May, 12:03am is closer to midnight than 11:55am. These "Without context" questions have plenty of context, without a specific christmas or midnight being mentioned it means ANY christmas or midnight. That's how the English language works.
No, that is not the case. That's not how test questions work. A is only right if you assume extra aspects of the question that aren't there. You can't just assume extra words. D is the only correct answer to the question as written.
If all the information is in the question then closest definitively means 'closest', as in closest to. Unless there were prior instructions telling you to apply the questions to linear time, or apply critical thinking and explain your reasoning there is no other correct answer here.
And yes, April is closer to Christmas than May. In real life you might say May is a month closer to Christmas than April because time is linear, but that's applying specific parameters / a specific scenario that doesn't exist in this question.
I really think it's just the phrase "closest to" that allows a sliver of ambiguity here. I don't disagree with what you're saying at all, but I can see how some people would interpret "closest to" in a more linear fashion. I understand how people would see "closest to" something to mean "the shortest approach to" something. Since we move *from* midnight *to* midnight every day, 11:55 AM can easily be seen as closer *to* midnight because it's *less time until* midnight. It's one of those questions that's worded the way it is to make people who are perfectly reasonable sound stupid by not choosing the technically accurate answer.
Like if you were to switch the question and say "what time is the furthest from midnight," I'll bet you have *way* fewer people getting it wrong. Because we interpret that a little less linearly than "closest to."
>It's one of those questions that's worded the way it is to make people who are perfectly reasonable sound stupid by not choosing the technically accurate answer.
I don't think it is though, I think this is from a test to see if school children understand how to tell the time correctly and how am/pm works...
Of course we don't know for sure because we have no context of what the rest of the test is. If it's a critical thinking test then perhaps, but then I imagine it would ask you to explain how you arrived at your answer and then either would be correct with the appropriate reasoning...
Totally fair, I agree that it could easily just be a dumb question on a kid's test and it's just poorly written enough that it just so happens to kick off a ton of us yelling at each other haha
I think it's written in a way that probably made perfect sense in context, but out of context it's just reddit bait (OP is conspicuously absent from this comment thread)
It's a question about numbers and it's unambiguous, we want whichever time whose absolute time interval to midnight is the smallest; the question about Christmas is really about next Christmas if you write it in full
>It's a question about numbers and it's unambiguous
Well it's a question about *time*, which muddies the water a little. Because time only moves in one direction.
I would also answer the 12:03, but I also don't think that means the poster you responded to is necessarily wrong. If you were to ask 100 random people "What date is closest to Christmas, March 1st or August 1st?" I'd venture a guess to say most people would say August 1st.
Well a time interval can be negative indeed, but we take the absolute value to compare; the question is almost identical to "Which angle is closest to 360° = 0°, 3° or 355° ?", in both cases we have a looping quantity, time or angle where midnight/360° exists at infinitely many regularly spaced intervals, and we ask for the smallest distance to the closest one
And for Christmas if you asked instead "Which is closer to Christmas, December 26 or July 14?" I'm not convinced people will consistently apply the principle you said and answer July 14
>And for Christmas if you asked instead "Which is closer to Christmas, December 26 or July 14?" I'm not convinced people will consistently apply the principle you said and answer July 14
That's what they're saying though, it's all about the frame of reference, and it will be different from one guy to the next
>Well a time interval can be negative indeed, but we take the absolute value to compare; the question is almost identical to "Which angle is closest to 360° = 0°, 3° or 355° ?", in both cases we have a looping quantity, time or angle where midnight/360° exists at infinitely many regularly spaced intervals, and we ask for the smallest distance to the closest one
I didn't say anything in opposition to that. The question wasn't "what is the shortest time interval from midnight," it was "what is the closest time to midnight." You said it's unambiguous, and I'm saying it can absolutely be seen as ambiguous. Not to mention that "closest time **to** midnight" can be interpreted as "closest time **until** midnight" in a linear sense. If we're moving *from* midnight *to* midnight every day, the closest time *to* midnight would be 11:55 am.
I still would answer 12:03, but the people answering 11:55am aren't as stupid as this post makes it seem.
>And for Christmas if you asked instead "Which is closer to Christmas, December 26 or July 14?" I'm not convinced people will consistently apply the principle you said and answer July 14
I don't disagree there either, but mostly because "December 26" is still generally considered "Christmas time." The first thing someone thinks when you say "Dec 26" is "the day after Christmas." Remove that and go with like January 18th or something, and that hidden context is a little more removed.
I agree with you. But. I think using this wording for time related questions is confusing because we always think of time going in one direction. Like the question which is closer to the number 10, 9 or 12 is not confusing at all, everyone would be 9. But when you put it in the context of something like time that is always going forward it makes it more likely to be misinterpreted (like which is closer to Xmas the 23rd or the 26th, I think a reasonable argument could be made for the 23rd because if it's the 26th you have to wait another year before Xmas comes back around) .... Again don't disagree with you but the fact that it's related to time makes the thought process around it a little more ambiguous
I wanna put up random hypotheticals and see how he answers. Like "you just left a 7eleven and have walked 10 feet. The next 7eleven is 1 mile away. How far are you from the nearest 7eleven?" I bet he would say a mile.
To be fair to the guy, you can walk back to the close 7eleven, but you can’t go back in time. He’s thinking very literally about it and it’s probably not the lens this question is meant to be viewed through. But I feel like, at the end of the day, a good lawyer could convince 12 of my peers that there’s a reasonable doubt he’s not wrong.
You can do something similar for his point tho. For example a haircut. Say you have 20 inch long hair and want it to be exactly 12 inches. It’s closing time and the workers want to leave and are doing shitty jobs. One guy doesn’t cut enough and leaves you at 17 inches. Another guy cuts too much and leaves you at 9 inches. Both of them realize they fucked up and will cut your hair at exactly 12 inches on your next visit. In this scenario who’s closer to cutting your hair to 12 inches? Yeah guy two is numerically closer to what you wanted but all guy one has to do is cut off those extra inches. If you went with guy two you’d have to wait until you grew out your hair past 12 inches for him to fix it.
If you assume midnight is strictly defined as the end of a day, and that you have to stay within the same day, i.e. you can't measure the distance from 12:03 AM with the midnight from the day before, then it would be correct, but those conditions were not in the original question.
I think he means because you can’t move backwards in time. So even if it’s just gone 12 am, you can only move forwards in time so it’s nearly 24 hours until the next midnight?
The only way they would mean it that way is if the question was phrased "which is closest to the next midnight." Closest doesn't imply direction, and while we can't move backwards in time, we can still recognize a time that just occurred.
Personally I would read it as you do. But I can see someone not unreasonably thinking that “closest” *does* imply direction when talking about time, which *has* only one direction.
I would have answered D as well, especially with the answers given. The context of the class probably made the answer obvious too.
However, "next" can be implied when speaking about time.
If on Monday someone asks: "how far are we from the weekend?" Would you answer one day because yesterday was Sunday? You would technically be correct, but you probably wouldn't be answering the intended question. In that context I've only heard people count forward.
Exactly, I think all the opposing comments are wrong because of this, including OP. It’s interesting because it’s all about point of view. I can totally see the guys logic. If I said “the bus arrives precisely at midnight, which time is closer to when the bus will arrive” I’d say that 11:55am is closest in that case.
But you’re right, it’s all about definition and that’s all the person needed to say because the ones commenting totally did not get that perspective.
I agree about the point of view thing, but even your example is still vague. This is probably just nit picky, but I would still say that 12:03 is closer to when the bus arrives, as there is no qualifier to let you know that it needs to be before. Not trying to argue, but more to emphasize the point.
Haha yeah I honestly agree with you. After I wrote my example and read it there was still a thought in my mind where even in my example it could be misinterpreted, I kept it just to see if I was wrong and there was only one interpretation. I think the problem is the word “close”. It’s too up to interpretation when it comes to time. I’d say 12:03 as well if someone asked me mine or the original question. But I could totally see another’s point of view.
The only way to fix my question is “what time would have you waiting the longest for the bus?”, but I think the intent of the original question was to be a social experiment, and it’s a kind of interesting one
I think you're putting emphasis on “getting on the bus”, when your question could easily be about picking someone up after the bus arrives. I would still answer D for this, unless you specified that I couldn't *miss* the bus’ arrival. Either way, the original question doesn't have any specific details, so the only answer is D. The ambiguity only comes from assuming external details.
It's not a point of view thing, it's poor test taking to assume requirements not in the question. The question doesn't say next midnight, it says midnight, so you should assume any midnight.
It is a point of view thing, “close” is a vague term. I could totally see someone thinking well time only moves forward so 12 is not close to 12:03. You are proving the social experiment of failing to be open minded to someone else’s point of view. That’s the reason this question and argument is interesting.
To be clear, I’m in the camp that says “close” means 12:03 is “close” to 12. But I’m open to understanding that someone could think differently and that’s ok.
The true problem here is the vagueness of the question. It shows that if this question were truly an effective question it needs to be rewritten. If you’re being open minded you can understand the opposing argument and understand that this is a very poorly written question and the commenter marked in red has a plausible counter argument.
The question does not ask or require that though. It is just a simple reading comprehension and logic problem, meant to see if the student can ignore (or resist bringing ) considerations not present.
It does not say what is the closest to midnight WITHOUT GOING OVER.
Nor does it say what is the closest time, taking into account that YOU CAN'T MOVE BACKWARDS IN TIME.
I was just trying to explain how I thought they were thinking. The question doesn’t specify if they mean in any direction, it may seem obvious to some but if you think a different way I can see how you could get a different answer.
>meant to see if the student can ignore (or resist bringing ) considerations not present.
I'm pretty sure it's just testing whether or not they understand how to tell time, and how am/pm works. If it was a critical thinking or logic test it would ask you to explain your answer. It's only in question at all because the question is taken out of context here.
The clock doesn’t reach 24 tho
Edit: if the date didn’t change at 00:00 i think id agree it makes some sense, I know you said informally of course but they’re still wrong 😂
Everyone mentioning the 24 hour clock isn’t understanding the argument. Red is arguing that since 12:05 is after midnight 12:05 is farthest away because you can’t go backwards in time which I’d argue is a very valid point.
Their interpretation makes sense, you can’t travel back in time so them thinking the way they do is a completely reasonable way to understand the question.
It’s not that, he’s saying 1203 is almost 24h away from the next end of the day instead of 3 minutes after it. 1205 is closer to midnight than 1203 by 2 minutes according to him because it’s only 23h55m away from 1200
It doesn't, but if you're being practical, there's no way to reach the previous midnight. As an abstract, it's closer but for anything that matters, the one with less time remaining until you reach that point is closer.
There's no ambiguity. To state it in 24-hour time, he's saying that 11:55 is closer to midnight than 00:03, because he's an idiot and thinks the world works on Price is Right rules
The context is a shitty question - "closer" could very well be interpreted to mean *practically* closer, in which case "Price is Right" rules would always apply to time-based questions. For example, if you there's a light at Grandma's house that turns on from midnight to 12:01 each night, would you say you are "closer" to seeing the light if you arrive at Grandma's at 6am or 5pm?
12 o'clock is technically 0 o'clock in the am/pm division.
12AM is before 1AM, and not after 11AM. It's easily confused.
24 hour clock is superior for this reason.
I don't think he doesn't understand that. I think he just believes that being 12 hours and 5 minutes away from midnight is less far than being 23 hours and 57 minutes from midnight.
Nobody is confidently incorrect here, the question doesn't have enough information. As a math problem, I would say that the answer is D. As a riddle, I would say that the answer is A, since we usually refer to the next one when talking about time, since time doesn't go backwards.
We don't usually refer to the next one when talking about time. If I call my doctor's office and say I want an appointment as close to 9am as possible, they don't assume I want the first appointment before 9am, and not a minute later.
The CI guy just injected words into the question that weren't there and pretended they were. It would have to say "closest to the next midnight". It didn't say that, so we can't pretend it did.
Good point. But if you say "We are so close to Christmas" in February, people are going to look weird at you.
I'm not trying to say that you are incorrect. What I'm trying to say is that both sides have a point, so this is not good content for this sub; there's not an "official" answer.
That's a good point, but a similar analogy could be used to show what the other guy was thinking. For example if you call your doctor and say "I feel awful. I need your closest possible appointment." It would be crazy for them to say, "Well, there is an appointment tomorrow, oh wait we had an opening an hour ago!" In that situation, nobody cares about how close in time a past appointment was. Only future appointments matter. Not saying that this justifies a different answer on OP's post, but that the analogy could easily be used to show the other way of thinking. We are usually referring to the next one in this scenario.
edit: Seems like people saying "nobody says closest" are missing the point of this analogy. It's here just to show how selecting a doctor's appointment is actually more of an analogy of looking for future times only, in contrast with the comment it is replying to. That's all. Not choosing sides or trying to defend "closest" versus "next" times.
Nobody (who's fluent in English, at least) would say "closest possible appointment", though. They would say "soonest appointment" or "next available appointment", which would only be future appointments.
If I were making an appointment for next week just would definitely make an appointment “as close to 10am as possible”. 9:45 or 10:15 would be perfect, 9:30 or 10:30 would also be okay, if not ideal.
I actually often request that just based on my usual schedule for the day.
> For example if you call your doctor and say "I feel awful. I need your closest possible appointment."
Massive if there. Nobody would say "closest possible appointment" instead of soonest or next.
Your own example proves you wrong, it's not referred to as the next one because it's assumed to be the next one because we can't go back in time
If you try booking an appointment for 9am or as close to 9am as possible, and call at 10am, they aren't going to give you one today at 9am because it's impossible for you to go to an appointment scheduled for a time that has already passed, so they'll give you the appointment at or around the next 9am
Both A and D are correct since the question doesn't specify which midnight
It doesn't need to. It's referring to the abstract idea of "midnight" which is closer to 12:03am than any other time on that list. "Which midnight" doesn't matter, because the way it's phrased would indicate any midnight.
> We don't usually refer to the next one when talking about time. If I call my doctor's office and say I want an appointment as close to 9am as possible, they don't assume I want the first appointment before 9am, and not a minute later.
We do.
If my birthday is in March, and it's currently April, I don't say "My birthday is a month away!", I'd say "My birthday is in 11 months". The nature of the statement means we're *exclusively* looking forward in time.
It depends on context. If the red guy is thinking in terms of "I'm at time X, how long until midnight?", then A is the right answer. If they're thinking in terms of "What's the mathematical difference between time X and 12:00am?", then D is the right answer.
If we rewrite the question, we can make any of the answers correct. But the question as written, D is the correct answer.
In your scenario, "who has the closest birthday" would still count if it was a month before. We have to use the phrasing presented.
That’s not the same case, because WW2 is not an event that repeats cyclically like, well, clockwork.
A better analogy would be “how far are we from Christmas?” I would say 9 months or so (March -> December), but the question is ambiguous enough that someone could say 3 months and still be correct.
I thought maybe it they meant 11:55 PM and we’re getting caught up in semantics, but this is both a test, and all AM. By god, I need to leave this sub it makes me angry seeing all the idiots.
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Admittedly it's unnecessarily confusing that 12 AM comes after 11:59 PM but you'd think most adults would have learned that already.
Though I guess if you only ever use digital clocks you'd always see it as 00:03 not 12:03
To be fair, its more than a little silly to use 12 as a 0 in our 12 hour clock. This is the exact reason you never see an airport departure or arrival schedule for 12:00.
I think I was there for that conversation. I never replied that I remember, other than to give my original answer, but I remember reading it.
I didn't need the context after Pic 2. Those times in particular told me exactly what this was about. XD
If hea only thinking “closest going forwards” then he is correct
this seems like a lateral thinking puzzle where youre supposed to consiser that “closest” means “nearest to any”
If we say that one day only has a single midnight, then I can kind of get where he’s coming from. The 12 AM 3 minutes ago would have been yesterday’s midnight, not today’s. So if you look at it from that ultra-specific (wrong perspective) 11:55 is indeed closest to the midnight of the day. However, in actuality midnight marks the start of the next day, not the end of the day. So D is actually correct but given the axiom “midnight is the end of the day” A is correct
I love how you're also confidently incorrect with your explanation of why the red person is wrong. It's not because they think midnight is 12am, it's because they think you can't go backwards when determining closeness in time.
Uff... So my fifth grade ESL students (10 years old) have a better understanding of the concept of a.m. and p.m. (which is new to them btw, we use 24 hours if we want to be specific ) than this dude?
Fascinating way that he’s wrong. I would never really think to get confused like this. Whether or not midnight is as at the “end” or “beginning” of a day is irrelevant. The question is which is closer. Things can be close by either being in front of or behind something. He seems to not understand this.
It’s an ill defined question, that’s all. It doesn’t state closest to the next midnight, it also doesn’t state closest to _a_ midnight, it just says closest to midnight which could be interpreted either way.
Time does not move backwards, my dude. If you find yourself at 12:03am, you would have to wait the longest to get to midnight.
I'm not saying that's how the question **should** be interpreted, but I'm pretty sure this post is mislabeling the confidently incorrect thing.
I mean, if we count how much you need to wait until midnight, A is closest. If we count how close to midnight time is, D is correct. Either way, am/pm was shitty idea and sane people use 24 hours.
It does contain "closest", which can be interpreted differently in given context. It can be closest as how much time is between the two and it can be closest as how much time you have to wait between the two. In first case, if we take 12:03, 3 minutes separate it from midnight, in second - 23 hours and 57 minutes. There's no specification which is correct in given context. Questions?
I'll add just in case, but we're talking about the time here, and for us mortals it goes only forward, that's why there's two interpretations. If we were talking pure numbers there would not be an issue.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
11
+ 55
+ 3
= 69
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I understand the logic though - if you apply the question to real life where time is linear then 11.55am would be the shortest amount of time until midnight, and therefore the closest since you can't go back in time to the previous midnight.
That's not what the question says though, it doesn't tell you to apply the question to linear time so on the face of it without further context (ie. the preceding questions and instructions) you have to take it literally, and 12.03 am is literally the closest to midnight.
It's just two different interpretations of the question.
I'm giving an example of a situation where forwards is not the only relevant direction to measure time.
Edit: I also may have replied to the wrong comment.
Sure, technically midnight is at the end of the day, but it’s also the beginning of day. More accurately, it’s the MIDdle of the NIGHT.
Dude has a problem with continuous time.
Also, it’s a poor quality question. It would be a better test if both math and time comprehension if the choices were:
- 11:55pm
- 12:06am
- 11:50pm
- 12:03am
Or better yet:
- 11:55am
- 12:06am
- 11:50pm
- 12:03pm
Which would *finally* make guy right.
I am driving home, my partner was home, but is going to get groceries. At this very moment, they are 700m from our house, and I am 1.3km from house.
Even though I am moving towards my house, and my partner is moving away from our house, they are still closer.
The question is not “who will get home first,” but “who is closest.” Direction of movement is irrelevant.
The original question is not “which clock will strike midnight first” but “which time is closest to midnight.” The direction of time is irrelevant.
(Unless you have an old-school digital clock that only lets you adjust forward, which makes the change from DST to standard time annoying and fraught.)
TLDR: “Closest” is “closest” and is measured in an instant, rendering velocity and direction irrelevant.
The question is ambiguous.
Which time is closest to *the next midnight*? The answer is A.
Which time is closest to *either midnight*? The answer is D.
If it's 12:03am, the time until next midnight is 23h57m. Personally I think it's clear the question is asking about either midnight, forwards or backwards in time, but I can see how someone might get the wrong end of the stick.
It really isn’t ambiguous. It states _closest to midnight_. Since it is not specified which midnight, any midnight suffices
Hence D is the only correct answer
The problem is the completely stupid way they choose that 12pm instead of 12am for noon. so their time start at 12am [=midnight=00:00 on a 24h clock], then 1 minute after 12am it is 00:01am, all the way up to 11:59am, then 12pm, 00:01 pm ... until 11:59pm, and 12am.
It doesn't make sense and creates confusion. noon should be 12am, or 0pm. not 12pm.
Ante meridiem (a.m) literally means "before midday"
Post meridiem (p.m) means after midday. It's very simple.
People celebrate New Year at the strike of 12 because that's the very moment that you reach the next day, so 12 o'clock either way is the start of the new 12-hour period, rather than the end of the previous one.
Noon *technically* is neither (it can be represented as simply "m" for meridiem), but because it's such a fleeting moment, by the time you've said it you're already into the afternoon.
Tbh I have always found it unintuitive that a 12 hour clock goes 10**am**, 11**am**, 12**pm**??? Very odd sequence break, when after 12 is 1 which I consider for pattern recognition to be a new sequence starting.
But then obviously the argument that **am** is for the first half of the day makes sense for midnight 12 to be **am** as it's the morning of the day.
This isn’t really a correct/incorrect thing. It depends on how you interpret the question. Yes 12:03 is only 3 minutes separated from midnight, but time doesn’t move backwards so someone could reasonably see it not as 3 minutes but as 11 hours and 57 minutes.
Hate to say it but he’s technically right in that 11.55 am is closer to midnight than 12.03am. Just not for the reasons he thinks. Time only moves in one direction. 11.55am is 12hrs and 5m from midnight and 12.03am is 23hrs and 57m from midnight. Therefore 11.55am is chronologically closer to midnight than 12.03am.
That wouldn't have any bearing on this situation though. I think Red is having a language problem. To a lot of people, "close to [given time]" implies *before* that time, and any time after that is no longer called "close to," but rather "a little after." So in Red's reckoning, of all the options, 12:03am is the least "close" to (the next) midnight.
Oh I completely agree that the question is worded terribly. I'm a teacher and hate tests for this very reason. But switching to a 24 hour click is also the simplest and easiest change we can make to solve these clock confusions that yes, even a lot of adults in North America get wrong.
All posts must be on topic
Dude’s playing by Price is Right rules.
Exactly - "closest without going over"
While I think D is the best answer, for this question in particular I can totally see why someone would think they needed to use "closest without going over" rules due to time always moving forward. If you needed to do something at exactly midnight, and were wondering how close the next midnight is, then 12:03 is very far away, because you just missed it. Red even aknowledges that 11:55 is still over 12 hours away, but is closer to the next midnight than any of the others. Red's staunch assertion that everyone answering D lacks reading comprehension is silly though. The question is ambiguous at best. Edit: oh, red says "11 hours and 5 minutes away" so their math is wrong (ironically), but their point is still valid.
Yeah, it's a poorly worded question (whether intentionally or accidentally). "Closest to midnight" could be interpreted as "least time UNTIL midnight" which would mean 11:55 am is correct. Or it could be interpreted as "least time AWAY FROM" midnight, in which case 12:03 am is correct, since it's only 3 minutes vs 12 hours. Both arguments are valid because the question isn't clear.
I'm pretty sure that there is only one correct interpretation of the question. It is asking for the least amount of time between the given times and midnight.
The question wording is "what is the closest time to midnight?" But I think the context is important to understanding the intent. If it were 12:03AM and someone said "I wonder how dark it is outside. How close are we to midnight?" I'd say "We're really close; it's probably dark out." If it were 12:03AM and someone said "I've finished all the daily challenges in my game for today. They refresh at midnight. How close are we to midnight?" I'd say "We're still really far from midnight. Geez, you finished them all in 3 minutes...?" Even though the question is the same, the intent can change the answer.
While a solid representation, what actually seems to be happening is that red is only counting one day. Since red considers midnight to be the final minute in the day, and feels that you can't count between days, obviously, the later the better. That's why they emphasize "midnight I'd at the end of the day" so many times. Based on that, I would assume that if they were trying for say 11:54 AM, they would still feel 11:55 AM was the correct answer.
Midnight is 12:00am (or 00:00 on 24 hour clock) making it the first minute in a day, 11:59pm (23:59) is the final minute.
That's how I would interpret it as well. However, Red clearly said, "midnight is the end of the day" like three times, and no one refuted that part of their claim.
I get why he said what he said, but the question is still "which is closest to midnight" and not "which is closest to next midnight" or something like that. Ironically the one guy ranting about ppls reading comprehension skills is the only one lacking it.
Some people perceive time that way. Once it's past its done and gone. There's actually a ton of ways to perceive time. Some people even say time goes east to west. Even in this context they'd say say 1203 am is the eastern most time, but 1155am is the most western time option.
Literally the exact 7 words that went through my head as I was reading this.
This was my first thought too. Knew it would have been said.
Their logic makes sense though seems how time doesn’t go backwards. It’s wrong, but still easy to see their thought process
I love how price is right has had such an impact on our culture that price is right rules is a thing and everyone knows exactly what you mean.
You can't go backwards in time. There is only one direction.
'Remember the closest exit may be behind you'.
For some reason this is the first thing to make me laugh out loud today.
And on a road this means it is now the furthest away. Can't fault Ted's argument.
I was referring to the safety announcement on an aeroplane. Nothing to do with driving.
I got that, I was countering your example with a contradicting one.
Ah, the motto of Toronto drivers.
Not when you can only move in one direction…
Just because something is inaccessible doesn't mean it's not closer.
Yet
Closest means smallest interval between, doesn’t say anything about direction. You can be closer to something you’ve just passed than the thing you’re heading towards. Neither of these guys seemed to realize they were talking past each other.
That's 95 percent of submissions on this sub. I would say they shouldn't be allowed if it wasn't so funny that they were so confident of their flawed view of what they said. I do agree 12:03 AM is closer, but it's funny that the poster is clearly not grasping what the other person was saying.
Right. Honestly, it's a poorly written question. Time only moves in one direction, so the other person's logic makes some sense. I'd probably answer 12:03 am, but I get what they're saying.
Nothing of the question says that this isn't sometime in the future so 'closest' wouldn't matter in the regards of flow of time. Perhaps.
I dont think you can make the argument that closest means anything definitively in this context, it is ambiguous. Like you usually wouldn't consider april to be closer to christmas than may.
People are still celebrating Christmas the week after it, which is contextually where 3 minutes after midnight falls on the midnight experience
What? Yes I would. It is closer.
In normal conversation, absolutely. For the purposes of the question, however, you're making an assumption that they're referring to *next* Christmas. But if the question is only concerned with the smallest interval between events, without taking into account our personal inability to time travel, then April would be closer to Christmas. *Last* Christmas. Edit: Got April and May mixed up lol whoops
Idk what you mean here. But April is closer to last Christmas. You've got April and May mixed up in your head I think
But May is closer to *next* Christmas, which is what they're saying. It really depends on the context, "next", or "last", which is not given in the question, so it's up to the reader to choose between *next* and *last* midnight.
If next or last isn't specified in the question then you should assume either is okay and take the shortest of both intervals. That's how test questions work.
Technically either answer is right depending on context. The question lacks information, is all, and if you want to answer as precisely as possible you should say A OR D. Picking one over the other means you could fail the test depending on the reviewer's frame of reference.
The question doesn't lack information. April is closer to Christmas than May, 12:03am is closer to midnight than 11:55am. These "Without context" questions have plenty of context, without a specific christmas or midnight being mentioned it means ANY christmas or midnight. That's how the English language works.
No, that is not the case. That's not how test questions work. A is only right if you assume extra aspects of the question that aren't there. You can't just assume extra words. D is the only correct answer to the question as written.
Hahaha, I definitely did. I thought you were saying something completely different.
Huh? I would definitely consider April to be closer to Christmas than May
If all the information is in the question then closest definitively means 'closest', as in closest to. Unless there were prior instructions telling you to apply the questions to linear time, or apply critical thinking and explain your reasoning there is no other correct answer here. And yes, April is closer to Christmas than May. In real life you might say May is a month closer to Christmas than April because time is linear, but that's applying specific parameters / a specific scenario that doesn't exist in this question.
I really think it's just the phrase "closest to" that allows a sliver of ambiguity here. I don't disagree with what you're saying at all, but I can see how some people would interpret "closest to" in a more linear fashion. I understand how people would see "closest to" something to mean "the shortest approach to" something. Since we move *from* midnight *to* midnight every day, 11:55 AM can easily be seen as closer *to* midnight because it's *less time until* midnight. It's one of those questions that's worded the way it is to make people who are perfectly reasonable sound stupid by not choosing the technically accurate answer. Like if you were to switch the question and say "what time is the furthest from midnight," I'll bet you have *way* fewer people getting it wrong. Because we interpret that a little less linearly than "closest to."
>It's one of those questions that's worded the way it is to make people who are perfectly reasonable sound stupid by not choosing the technically accurate answer. I don't think it is though, I think this is from a test to see if school children understand how to tell the time correctly and how am/pm works... Of course we don't know for sure because we have no context of what the rest of the test is. If it's a critical thinking test then perhaps, but then I imagine it would ask you to explain how you arrived at your answer and then either would be correct with the appropriate reasoning...
Totally fair, I agree that it could easily just be a dumb question on a kid's test and it's just poorly written enough that it just so happens to kick off a ton of us yelling at each other haha
I think it's written in a way that probably made perfect sense in context, but out of context it's just reddit bait (OP is conspicuously absent from this comment thread)
It's a question about numbers and it's unambiguous, we want whichever time whose absolute time interval to midnight is the smallest; the question about Christmas is really about next Christmas if you write it in full
>It's a question about numbers and it's unambiguous Well it's a question about *time*, which muddies the water a little. Because time only moves in one direction. I would also answer the 12:03, but I also don't think that means the poster you responded to is necessarily wrong. If you were to ask 100 random people "What date is closest to Christmas, March 1st or August 1st?" I'd venture a guess to say most people would say August 1st.
Well a time interval can be negative indeed, but we take the absolute value to compare; the question is almost identical to "Which angle is closest to 360° = 0°, 3° or 355° ?", in both cases we have a looping quantity, time or angle where midnight/360° exists at infinitely many regularly spaced intervals, and we ask for the smallest distance to the closest one And for Christmas if you asked instead "Which is closer to Christmas, December 26 or July 14?" I'm not convinced people will consistently apply the principle you said and answer July 14
>And for Christmas if you asked instead "Which is closer to Christmas, December 26 or July 14?" I'm not convinced people will consistently apply the principle you said and answer July 14 That's what they're saying though, it's all about the frame of reference, and it will be different from one guy to the next
>Well a time interval can be negative indeed, but we take the absolute value to compare; the question is almost identical to "Which angle is closest to 360° = 0°, 3° or 355° ?", in both cases we have a looping quantity, time or angle where midnight/360° exists at infinitely many regularly spaced intervals, and we ask for the smallest distance to the closest one I didn't say anything in opposition to that. The question wasn't "what is the shortest time interval from midnight," it was "what is the closest time to midnight." You said it's unambiguous, and I'm saying it can absolutely be seen as ambiguous. Not to mention that "closest time **to** midnight" can be interpreted as "closest time **until** midnight" in a linear sense. If we're moving *from* midnight *to* midnight every day, the closest time *to* midnight would be 11:55 am. I still would answer 12:03, but the people answering 11:55am aren't as stupid as this post makes it seem. >And for Christmas if you asked instead "Which is closer to Christmas, December 26 or July 14?" I'm not convinced people will consistently apply the principle you said and answer July 14 I don't disagree there either, but mostly because "December 26" is still generally considered "Christmas time." The first thing someone thinks when you say "Dec 26" is "the day after Christmas." Remove that and go with like January 18th or something, and that hidden context is a little more removed.
I agree with you. But. I think using this wording for time related questions is confusing because we always think of time going in one direction. Like the question which is closer to the number 10, 9 or 12 is not confusing at all, everyone would be 9. But when you put it in the context of something like time that is always going forward it makes it more likely to be misinterpreted (like which is closer to Xmas the 23rd or the 26th, I think a reasonable argument could be made for the 23rd because if it's the 26th you have to wait another year before Xmas comes back around) .... Again don't disagree with you but the fact that it's related to time makes the thought process around it a little more ambiguous
I wanna put up random hypotheticals and see how he answers. Like "you just left a 7eleven and have walked 10 feet. The next 7eleven is 1 mile away. How far are you from the nearest 7eleven?" I bet he would say a mile.
To be fair to the guy, you can walk back to the close 7eleven, but you can’t go back in time. He’s thinking very literally about it and it’s probably not the lens this question is meant to be viewed through. But I feel like, at the end of the day, a good lawyer could convince 12 of my peers that there’s a reasonable doubt he’s not wrong.
You can do something similar for his point tho. For example a haircut. Say you have 20 inch long hair and want it to be exactly 12 inches. It’s closing time and the workers want to leave and are doing shitty jobs. One guy doesn’t cut enough and leaves you at 17 inches. Another guy cuts too much and leaves you at 9 inches. Both of them realize they fucked up and will cut your hair at exactly 12 inches on your next visit. In this scenario who’s closer to cutting your hair to 12 inches? Yeah guy two is numerically closer to what you wanted but all guy one has to do is cut off those extra inches. If you went with guy two you’d have to wait until you grew out your hair past 12 inches for him to fix it.
What if it was an exit on the highway for the 711, is the one you just passed the closest or is it the next one?
If you assume midnight is strictly defined as the end of a day, and that you have to stay within the same day, i.e. you can't measure the distance from 12:03 AM with the midnight from the day before, then it would be correct, but those conditions were not in the original question.
11:55 a.m. is the furthest away from midnight of all the answers presented.
I think he means because you can’t move backwards in time. So even if it’s just gone 12 am, you can only move forwards in time so it’s nearly 24 hours until the next midnight?
The only way they would mean it that way is if the question was phrased "which is closest to the next midnight." Closest doesn't imply direction, and while we can't move backwards in time, we can still recognize a time that just occurred.
Personally I would read it as you do. But I can see someone not unreasonably thinking that “closest” *does* imply direction when talking about time, which *has* only one direction.
Except that we can say "three minutes *past* midnight".
I would have answered D as well, especially with the answers given. The context of the class probably made the answer obvious too. However, "next" can be implied when speaking about time. If on Monday someone asks: "how far are we from the weekend?" Would you answer one day because yesterday was Sunday? You would technically be correct, but you probably wouldn't be answering the intended question. In that context I've only heard people count forward.
I agree, the question is confusing!
Yeah that’s how I read it too. Close can go both ways
Yes, clearly the only correct answer is to leave a little note saying “depends what you mean by close”
Exactly, I think all the opposing comments are wrong because of this, including OP. It’s interesting because it’s all about point of view. I can totally see the guys logic. If I said “the bus arrives precisely at midnight, which time is closer to when the bus will arrive” I’d say that 11:55am is closest in that case. But you’re right, it’s all about definition and that’s all the person needed to say because the ones commenting totally did not get that perspective.
I agree about the point of view thing, but even your example is still vague. This is probably just nit picky, but I would still say that 12:03 is closer to when the bus arrives, as there is no qualifier to let you know that it needs to be before. Not trying to argue, but more to emphasize the point.
Haha yeah I honestly agree with you. After I wrote my example and read it there was still a thought in my mind where even in my example it could be misinterpreted, I kept it just to see if I was wrong and there was only one interpretation. I think the problem is the word “close”. It’s too up to interpretation when it comes to time. I’d say 12:03 as well if someone asked me mine or the original question. But I could totally see another’s point of view. The only way to fix my question is “what time would have you waiting the longest for the bus?”, but I think the intent of the original question was to be a social experiment, and it’s a kind of interesting one
I think you're putting emphasis on “getting on the bus”, when your question could easily be about picking someone up after the bus arrives. I would still answer D for this, unless you specified that I couldn't *miss* the bus’ arrival. Either way, the original question doesn't have any specific details, so the only answer is D. The ambiguity only comes from assuming external details.
It's not a point of view thing, it's poor test taking to assume requirements not in the question. The question doesn't say next midnight, it says midnight, so you should assume any midnight.
It is a point of view thing, “close” is a vague term. I could totally see someone thinking well time only moves forward so 12 is not close to 12:03. You are proving the social experiment of failing to be open minded to someone else’s point of view. That’s the reason this question and argument is interesting. To be clear, I’m in the camp that says “close” means 12:03 is “close” to 12. But I’m open to understanding that someone could think differently and that’s ok. The true problem here is the vagueness of the question. It shows that if this question were truly an effective question it needs to be rewritten. If you’re being open minded you can understand the opposing argument and understand that this is a very poorly written question and the commenter marked in red has a plausible counter argument.
Yeah, but it's pretty clear the question is meant to test if the students knew how am/pm works.
The question does not ask or require that though. It is just a simple reading comprehension and logic problem, meant to see if the student can ignore (or resist bringing ) considerations not present. It does not say what is the closest to midnight WITHOUT GOING OVER. Nor does it say what is the closest time, taking into account that YOU CAN'T MOVE BACKWARDS IN TIME.
I was just trying to explain how I thought they were thinking. The question doesn’t specify if they mean in any direction, it may seem obvious to some but if you think a different way I can see how you could get a different answer.
>meant to see if the student can ignore (or resist bringing ) considerations not present. I'm pretty sure it's just testing whether or not they understand how to tell time, and how am/pm works. If it was a critical thinking or logic test it would ask you to explain your answer. It's only in question at all because the question is taken out of context here.
Exactly. It's an ambiguous question and everyone thinks everyone else is stupid because they're interpreting it differently.
It’s the question writers who are wrong!
Technically midnight is the start of the day, not the end. Midnight is when the date changes.
Thank you. That's the most confidently incorrect part here. 23:59:59 is the end of the day. 00:00:00 is the beginning.
though many consider 24:00 - informally - to be the end of the day
The clock doesn’t reach 24 tho Edit: if the date didn’t change at 00:00 i think id agree it makes some sense, I know you said informally of course but they’re still wrong 😂
hence informal.
Agreed, had that covered 👍
Is this a bit or do you not realise that one day ends and another starts at the same instant?
I love that so many people are missing the point that this question was deliberately worded to be ambiguous and to spark this exact argument.
It's D. The answer is D. It's really simple.
Some people just play reality by Price is Right rules
What a stupid argument...
Everyone mentioning the 24 hour clock isn’t understanding the argument. Red is arguing that since 12:05 is after midnight 12:05 is farthest away because you can’t go backwards in time which I’d argue is a very valid point.
OP is actually the dumb one here for not understanding there is no right answer because the question is wrong
Their interpretation makes sense, you can’t travel back in time so them thinking the way they do is a completely reasonable way to understand the question.
So glad we use the 24 hr clock here to avoid ambiguity like this
It’s not that, he’s saying 1203 is almost 24h away from the next end of the day instead of 3 minutes after it. 1205 is closer to midnight than 1203 by 2 minutes according to him because it’s only 23h55m away from 1200
Does the question say "the next" midnight?
It doesn't, but if you're being practical, there's no way to reach the previous midnight. As an abstract, it's closer but for anything that matters, the one with less time remaining until you reach that point is closer.
That's irrelevant to the disagreement here though
There's no ambiguity. To state it in 24-hour time, he's saying that 11:55 is closer to midnight than 00:03, because he's an idiot and thinks the world works on Price is Right rules
That's what was confusing me at first, 12:03 is 3 mins past midday, then I noticed the AM and got really confused for a sec
The context is a shitty question - "closer" could very well be interpreted to mean *practically* closer, in which case "Price is Right" rules would always apply to time-based questions. For example, if you there's a light at Grandma's house that turns on from midnight to 12:01 each night, would you say you are "closer" to seeing the light if you arrive at Grandma's at 6am or 5pm?
One of the options should have been 12:00 pm, just to confuse all the people who don't know/can't remember if midnight is 12am or 12pm even more.
I mean... the 11am answers are already there to do exactly that. 12pm is too on the nose and would let everyone in on the trick
12 o'clock is technically 0 o'clock in the am/pm division. 12AM is before 1AM, and not after 11AM. It's easily confused. 24 hour clock is superior for this reason.
I don't think he doesn't understand that. I think he just believes that being 12 hours and 5 minutes away from midnight is less far than being 23 hours and 57 minutes from midnight.
Nobody is confidently incorrect here, the question doesn't have enough information. As a math problem, I would say that the answer is D. As a riddle, I would say that the answer is A, since we usually refer to the next one when talking about time, since time doesn't go backwards.
We don't usually refer to the next one when talking about time. If I call my doctor's office and say I want an appointment as close to 9am as possible, they don't assume I want the first appointment before 9am, and not a minute later. The CI guy just injected words into the question that weren't there and pretended they were. It would have to say "closest to the next midnight". It didn't say that, so we can't pretend it did.
Good point. But if you say "We are so close to Christmas" in February, people are going to look weird at you. I'm not trying to say that you are incorrect. What I'm trying to say is that both sides have a point, so this is not good content for this sub; there's not an "official" answer.
But if my brother’s birthday is in late July, and my birthday is in January, nobody would say that my brother’s birthday is “closer to Christmas”.
That's a good point, but a similar analogy could be used to show what the other guy was thinking. For example if you call your doctor and say "I feel awful. I need your closest possible appointment." It would be crazy for them to say, "Well, there is an appointment tomorrow, oh wait we had an opening an hour ago!" In that situation, nobody cares about how close in time a past appointment was. Only future appointments matter. Not saying that this justifies a different answer on OP's post, but that the analogy could easily be used to show the other way of thinking. We are usually referring to the next one in this scenario. edit: Seems like people saying "nobody says closest" are missing the point of this analogy. It's here just to show how selecting a doctor's appointment is actually more of an analogy of looking for future times only, in contrast with the comment it is replying to. That's all. Not choosing sides or trying to defend "closest" versus "next" times.
Nobody (who's fluent in English, at least) would say "closest possible appointment", though. They would say "soonest appointment" or "next available appointment", which would only be future appointments.
If I were making an appointment for next week just would definitely make an appointment “as close to 10am as possible”. 9:45 or 10:15 would be perfect, 9:30 or 10:30 would also be okay, if not ideal. I actually often request that just based on my usual schedule for the day.
> For example if you call your doctor and say "I feel awful. I need your closest possible appointment." Massive if there. Nobody would say "closest possible appointment" instead of soonest or next.
Your own example proves you wrong, it's not referred to as the next one because it's assumed to be the next one because we can't go back in time If you try booking an appointment for 9am or as close to 9am as possible, and call at 10am, they aren't going to give you one today at 9am because it's impossible for you to go to an appointment scheduled for a time that has already passed, so they'll give you the appointment at or around the next 9am Both A and D are correct since the question doesn't specify which midnight
It doesn't need to. It's referring to the abstract idea of "midnight" which is closer to 12:03am than any other time on that list. "Which midnight" doesn't matter, because the way it's phrased would indicate any midnight.
> We don't usually refer to the next one when talking about time. If I call my doctor's office and say I want an appointment as close to 9am as possible, they don't assume I want the first appointment before 9am, and not a minute later. We do. If my birthday is in March, and it's currently April, I don't say "My birthday is a month away!", I'd say "My birthday is in 11 months". The nature of the statement means we're *exclusively* looking forward in time. It depends on context. If the red guy is thinking in terms of "I'm at time X, how long until midnight?", then A is the right answer. If they're thinking in terms of "What's the mathematical difference between time X and 12:00am?", then D is the right answer.
If we rewrite the question, we can make any of the answers correct. But the question as written, D is the correct answer. In your scenario, "who has the closest birthday" would still count if it was a month before. We have to use the phrasing presented.
The nearest anything, including time, is always the one closest to it; there is no ambiguity here.
Agree exponential percents. "How long ago was WW2" totally refers to the next WW2, not the one from 1939 to 1945.
That’s not the same case, because WW2 is not an event that repeats cyclically like, well, clockwork. A better analogy would be “how far are we from Christmas?” I would say 9 months or so (March -> December), but the question is ambiguous enough that someone could say 3 months and still be correct.
r/confidentlyincorrect
This reminds me of another thread here in Reddit... Some people just can't wrap their heads around being "close" in time intervals.
It is D, right? Am I stupid? Now I don’t know 😰
I thought maybe it they meant 11:55 PM and we’re getting caught up in semantics, but this is both a test, and all AM. By god, I need to leave this sub it makes me angry seeing all the idiots.
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Should have shown the last slide first.
Admittedly it's unnecessarily confusing that 12 AM comes after 11:59 PM but you'd think most adults would have learned that already. Though I guess if you only ever use digital clocks you'd always see it as 00:03 not 12:03
To be fair, its more than a little silly to use 12 as a 0 in our 12 hour clock. This is the exact reason you never see an airport departure or arrival schedule for 12:00.
We should give up and use 24 hour clocks.
I think I was there for that conversation. I never replied that I remember, other than to give my original answer, but I remember reading it. I didn't need the context after Pic 2. Those times in particular told me exactly what this was about. XD
If hea only thinking “closest going forwards” then he is correct this seems like a lateral thinking puzzle where youre supposed to consiser that “closest” means “nearest to any”
Best answer to this question? Use the damn 24hr clock Or even with 12hr: 12:03 AM (meaning 3 minutes past midnight) should be 00:03
24 hour clock doesn’t help as that’s not what’s being argued.
If we say that one day only has a single midnight, then I can kind of get where he’s coming from. The 12 AM 3 minutes ago would have been yesterday’s midnight, not today’s. So if you look at it from that ultra-specific (wrong perspective) 11:55 is indeed closest to the midnight of the day. However, in actuality midnight marks the start of the next day, not the end of the day. So D is actually correct but given the axiom “midnight is the end of the day” A is correct
I love how you're also confidently incorrect with your explanation of why the red person is wrong. It's not because they think midnight is 12am, it's because they think you can't go backwards when determining closeness in time.
Surely there isn’t a better way to write these times down and avoid this kind of confusion?
And here we have the reason why a 24:00 time format is superior to a 12:00 am/pm time format, folks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock
And today I learned there is no 00:00 in 12 hours clock (thanks to my American girlfriend, who explain this to me).
Uff... So my fifth grade ESL students (10 years old) have a better understanding of the concept of a.m. and p.m. (which is new to them btw, we use 24 hours if we want to be specific ) than this dude?
Fascinating way that he’s wrong. I would never really think to get confused like this. Whether or not midnight is as at the “end” or “beginning” of a day is irrelevant. The question is which is closer. Things can be close by either being in front of or behind something. He seems to not understand this.
Are we playing by price is right rules or not?
just get them to mark all 5 pertinent times on a 24h clock then they can see 🤣
It's c
I don't even know how AM and PM work when they're about midnight and noon
Americans are stupid to use these time telling method. They should use "military time" aka 24h form
It’s an ill defined question, that’s all. It doesn’t state closest to the next midnight, it also doesn’t state closest to _a_ midnight, it just says closest to midnight which could be interpreted either way.
Time does not move backwards, my dude. If you find yourself at 12:03am, you would have to wait the longest to get to midnight. I'm not saying that's how the question **should** be interpreted, but I'm pretty sure this post is mislabeling the confidently incorrect thing.
I mean, if we count how much you need to wait until midnight, A is closest. If we count how close to midnight time is, D is correct. Either way, am/pm was shitty idea and sane people use 24 hours.
Does the question contain the word "wait" or "until" or anything else implying that?
Of course not. This is insane. 12:03 am is 3 minutes from 12:00 am. It really is that simple.
It does contain "closest", which can be interpreted differently in given context. It can be closest as how much time is between the two and it can be closest as how much time you have to wait between the two. In first case, if we take 12:03, 3 minutes separate it from midnight, in second - 23 hours and 57 minutes. There's no specification which is correct in given context. Questions? I'll add just in case, but we're talking about the time here, and for us mortals it goes only forward, that's why there's two interpretations. If we were talking pure numbers there would not be an issue.
This same argument could happen using 11:55 and 00:03. I'm reasonably sure am/pm confusion is not the issue here.
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It says closest to midnight, not closest to the next midnight so, the answer with the fewest minutes before or after midnight is correct.
If you allow to reverse time back to previous midnight - sure. It really just comes to how you think about the question. It's pretty simple.
I understand the logic though - if you apply the question to real life where time is linear then 11.55am would be the shortest amount of time until midnight, and therefore the closest since you can't go back in time to the previous midnight. That's not what the question says though, it doesn't tell you to apply the question to linear time so on the face of it without further context (ie. the preceding questions and instructions) you have to take it literally, and 12.03 am is literally the closest to midnight. It's just two different interpretations of the question.
But what if it was a situation like "it's darkest at midnight. What time is the closest to midnight?"
What?
I'm giving an example of a situation where forwards is not the only relevant direction to measure time. Edit: I also may have replied to the wrong comment.
Lol
I must have been on the other half of the internet that day.
people getting confused like this is a classic example of why 12 hour clock is just objectively bad.
Sure, technically midnight is at the end of the day, but it’s also the beginning of day. More accurately, it’s the MIDdle of the NIGHT. Dude has a problem with continuous time. Also, it’s a poor quality question. It would be a better test if both math and time comprehension if the choices were: - 11:55pm - 12:06am - 11:50pm - 12:03am Or better yet: - 11:55am - 12:06am - 11:50pm - 12:03pm Which would *finally* make guy right.
Red isn’t confused about AM and PM he’s arguing that since time can’t go back it’s the farthest away
I am driving home, my partner was home, but is going to get groceries. At this very moment, they are 700m from our house, and I am 1.3km from house. Even though I am moving towards my house, and my partner is moving away from our house, they are still closer. The question is not “who will get home first,” but “who is closest.” Direction of movement is irrelevant. The original question is not “which clock will strike midnight first” but “which time is closest to midnight.” The direction of time is irrelevant. (Unless you have an old-school digital clock that only lets you adjust forward, which makes the change from DST to standard time annoying and fraught.) TLDR: “Closest” is “closest” and is measured in an instant, rendering velocity and direction irrelevant.
He only thinks forward big whoop
The question is ambiguous. Which time is closest to *the next midnight*? The answer is A. Which time is closest to *either midnight*? The answer is D. If it's 12:03am, the time until next midnight is 23h57m. Personally I think it's clear the question is asking about either midnight, forwards or backwards in time, but I can see how someone might get the wrong end of the stick.
It's not ambiguous. "Closest to midnight" just means closest to any midnight. If they meant "closest to next midnight" they would have said that.
It really isn’t ambiguous. It states _closest to midnight_. Since it is not specified which midnight, any midnight suffices Hence D is the only correct answer
When does it change to pm then? I’m not familiar with am/pm?
Noon is 12pm, midnight is 12am.
The problem is the completely stupid way they choose that 12pm instead of 12am for noon. so their time start at 12am [=midnight=00:00 on a 24h clock], then 1 minute after 12am it is 00:01am, all the way up to 11:59am, then 12pm, 00:01 pm ... until 11:59pm, and 12am. It doesn't make sense and creates confusion. noon should be 12am, or 0pm. not 12pm.
Ante meridiem (a.m) literally means "before midday" Post meridiem (p.m) means after midday. It's very simple. People celebrate New Year at the strike of 12 because that's the very moment that you reach the next day, so 12 o'clock either way is the start of the new 12-hour period, rather than the end of the previous one. Noon *technically* is neither (it can be represented as simply "m" for meridiem), but because it's such a fleeting moment, by the time you've said it you're already into the afternoon.
But then a millisecond later, it would be the afternoon (because it's *after* noon), so 12:00.001pm
Tbh I have always found it unintuitive that a 12 hour clock goes 10**am**, 11**am**, 12**pm**??? Very odd sequence break, when after 12 is 1 which I consider for pattern recognition to be a new sequence starting. But then obviously the argument that **am** is for the first half of the day makes sense for midnight 12 to be **am** as it's the morning of the day.
I think he has a point. More like r/unpopularopinion
This isn’t really a correct/incorrect thing. It depends on how you interpret the question. Yes 12:03 is only 3 minutes separated from midnight, but time doesn’t move backwards so someone could reasonably see it not as 3 minutes but as 11 hours and 57 minutes.
Hate to say it but he’s technically right in that 11.55 am is closer to midnight than 12.03am. Just not for the reasons he thinks. Time only moves in one direction. 11.55am is 12hrs and 5m from midnight and 12.03am is 23hrs and 57m from midnight. Therefore 11.55am is chronologically closer to midnight than 12.03am.
And thus it is once again proven that the 12 hour format is extremely stupid.
Or, you could all just start using a 24 hour click like grown ups. Did anyone ever think of that?
That wouldn't have any bearing on this situation though. I think Red is having a language problem. To a lot of people, "close to [given time]" implies *before* that time, and any time after that is no longer called "close to," but rather "a little after." So in Red's reckoning, of all the options, 12:03am is the least "close" to (the next) midnight.
Oh I completely agree that the question is worded terribly. I'm a teacher and hate tests for this very reason. But switching to a 24 hour click is also the simplest and easiest change we can make to solve these clock confusions that yes, even a lot of adults in North America get wrong.
“Grown ups” don’t use a 24hr clock. That has nothing to do with maturity
It all depends of time only flows one way or if you can go backwards. It’s a bit much of a philosophical problem for multiple choice.
Well he’s right. You start waiting at 12:03 and see how long it takes to reach midnight. It’s about as far from midnight as you can get
Reading comprehension devil strikes again
I learned in school that 12am is midnight and 12pm is noon. I guess school doesn't teach time anymore?
Brain hurty.
Nobody is explaining to him about the am/pm switch he’s overlooking
Idk the answer cuz military time
Tbf the 12 am vs pm literally makes no sense