We've all been taught the scientific method again and again:
Step 1 - Identify a problem or a ax question.
Step 2 - Propose an answer or a solution (hypothesis).
Step 3 - Devise a test for the hypothesis.
Step 4 - Test. Analyze. Conclude.
Step 5 - Communicate your results.
Step 6 - Repeat.
The steps of this method, like the ten commandments, are often numbered differently but communicate the same concepts. Not all science actually happens this way since we know that sudden leaps forward are sometimes attributed to dreams and sudden revelations, but the slow plodding process does us well on a daily basis.
The lock on my school locker won't open. I try it again. Then I check the locker number just to be sure I'm in the right place. Then I slow down and try it again. It still doesn't open, but practical jokes are common around here so my lock may have been replaced. One more time. Then I see my giggling friends and the eyes of several phones.
My motorcycle won't start. It could be the battery. Or the spark. Or the fuel. So I take on the limited number of possibilities and eliminate them one by one until I arrive at the solution. The bike starts and I head out for a great ride.
We use the process continuously without even realizing it. Scientists and engineers and business managers and medical researchers use it in a very specific form in order to gain knowledge, change treatment protocol, and improve efficiency.
No matter how we do it, however, we could easily summarize the process as a complicated multiple choice question. Once the question is determined, there is a limited number of possibilities and we test and eliminate each wrong answer.
In other words, the entire scientific endeavor is just like the SAT.
So the next time somebody asks me what I teach, I'm gonna proudly respond
"I teach Multiple Choice."
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