Duties versus Responsibilities

Last night I took the last exam in the Technical Rescuer - General series (which in NC is also combined with the Rope Rescue specialization). One of the multiple choice questions asked you whether certain things were DUTIES of the incident commander, or instead RESPONSIBILITIES.

These exams are often badly written. I have found them harder than the exams I took in graduate school, sometimes, just because of the bad writing by the exam authors. Sometimes the issue is that the questions are antiquated and haven't been replaced:

• Last night's exam also featured two questions about an acronym used in rope rescue, both the current one we were taught about and the old one they long ago replaced and no one had ever heard of before; 
• another exam featured a series of questions about a type of harness that was long ago discontinued by NFPA, and about which we therefore knew nothing; 
• a third exam had a Vietnam-era question about helicopters that hasn't been current in decades. 

Those questions don't necessarily feature bad writing, just outdated information that needs to be cleaned up but apparently never is. They could be fixed if there were ever a review.

What really gets to me is the logic problems in the exams that are created by authors not understanding how logic works. One question on an early test asked if a kind of rescue material should be replaced after exposure to temperatures above 160 degrees Fahrenheit, 200 degrees, 220 degrees, or 240 degrees. Now logic will tell you that only 240 could be correct, as otherwise there would be multiple correct answers on a question that only accepts one. For example, if the correct answer were 220, then anything exposed to 240 should also be replaced because 240 > 220. 

However, 220 was in fact the correct answer, and the fact that 240 was also correct didn't bother the authors. The question could have been asked differently without creating that problem, which is why test authors should have some training in logic. "What is the standard for the maximum temperature beyond which these materials should be replaced?" would not have created the same issue.

Here too the real point of the question was to see if you had memorized the exact wording of the answer. There is no technical distinction in the literature between 'duty' and 'responsibility' that would justify including both answers in the test. If you look up the definition for 'responsibility,' you will find that the appropriate entry includes the word 'duty.' Either of these words would, in ordinary English, correctly describe the concept. However, one of them was right, and the other was counted towards failure of the exam.

I imagine this sort of thing comes up in many similar technical fields. I know it's something that the authors of the Law School Admissions Test take seriously, because they hired a friend of mine who is a professional logician to review their tests. At the technical school level, though, students have fewer resources and are unlikely to sue if they should wrongfully fail an exam. They're just working class people who are expected to put up with it, as they are often expected to put up with worse conditions in society. You failed? Eh, repeat the course. It won't hurt you to hear it again.