Barometer Question

The barometer question is an example of an incorrectly designed examination question that causes a moral dilemma for the examinator. In its classic form, popularized by American test designer professor Alexander Calandra (1911–2006), the question asked the student to "show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer?" The examinator was confident that there was one, and only one, correct answer. Contrary to the examinator's expectations, the student responded with a series of completely different answers. These answers were also correct, yet none of them proved the student's competence in the specific academic field being tested.

The barometer question achieved the status of an urban legend; according to an internet meme, the question was asked at the University of Copenhagen and the student was Niels Bohr. The Kaplan, Inc. ACT preparation textbook describes it as an "MIT legend". However, Calandra presented the incident as a real-life, first-person experience that occurred during the Sputnik crisis. Calandra's essay, Angels on a Pin, was published in 1959 in Pride, a magazine of American College Public Relations Association. It was reprinted in Current Science in 1964, in Saturday Review in 1968 and included in the 1969 edition of Calandra's The Teaching of Elementary Science and Mathematics. In the same 1969 Calandra's essay became a subject of an academic discussion. It was frequently reprinted since 1970, making its way into books on subjects ranging from teaching, writing skills, workplace counseling and investment in real estate to chemical industry, computer programming and integrated circuit design.