kangaroo: on a multiple choice test, an answer that is so obviously incorrect that no examinee with the sense God promised a monkey would ever select it
I learned about kangaroos in a senior level education course. There were two professors, one who taught testing and measurement and another who taught what I think of as the softer side of counseling. The info about kangaroos came from the T&M prof. He frowned upon them.
After a test covering the softer side, a student informed the SS prof that he’d included several kangaroos. He’d never heard the term. He also didn’t appear concerned.
Concern. Sometime I’ve got it. Sometimes I don’t.
If I were concerned about sincerity, truth, design; about beauty and art; about, to quote the Duke, preserving the unities, I would end, as I began, with kangaroos.
But I have nothing more to say about them. And the videos I’ve examined don’t do a thing for me.
So for kangaroos, substitute kittens.
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“Now,” says the duke, “after to-night we can run in the daytime if we want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but it wouldn’t go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing—we must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards.” ~ Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
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Image by saratarshouby from Pixabay
Kathy Waller 
I have never heard of the expression “kangaroo” in the context of a multiple choice test!?
To me they are just adorable creatures living in Australia, which I have been fortunate enough to encounter.
What I have heard of, however, are Zebra – used in medical environments for arriving at an exotic diagnosis when a more commonplace explanation is more likely.
My K is for Kuhfladen, which translates as cow pie 😉
https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-z-2020-switzerland-kufladen-cow-pie.html
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I haven’t found “kangaroo” anywhere else. Maybe that professor made it up himself. Having lived in the country, I’ve had some experience with cow pies. More experience than I wanted. Thanks for commenting.
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It almost seems like a kangaroo (the real kind) would be best experienced up close.
Never heard that expression, “kangaroo” on a multiple-choice exam.
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I’d like to see a kangaroo up close, but at present even leaving the house presents problems. Not complaining, though. Better in than out.
I googled “kangaroo.” No exams. I don’t know where the prof got it.
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