The Pineapple and the Hare

[Lisa Simpson]

Apparently, this is a question on a state-mandated test in several states.

In the story, a take-off on Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare, a talking pineapple challenges a hare to a race. The other animals wager on the immobile pineapple winning — and ponder whether it’s tricking them.

When the pineapple fails to move and the rabbit wins, the animals dine on the pineapple.

Students were asked two perplexing questions: why did the animals eat the talking fruit, and which animal was wisest?

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/talking-pineapple-question-state-exam-stumps-article-1.1064657

So the question is, who is the wisest?

 

[Dunstan]

The only possible logic I can see to either question is that as to "which animal was the wisest," it can't be the pineapple since it's not an animal.

I guess that still leaves you with the choice of the rabbit vs. "the other animals," to which I'd say the rabbit is the least wise, because the rabbit is way over at the finish line and misses out on the pineapple feast.

 

[hcmom]

Pretty sure the wisest is the toothpaste.

 

[BowlOfRed]

I'd bet a lot of money that a developer wrote it as a test question to check database and other functionality and it wasn't purged when the "real" questions were input.

Option 2 is is a fed-up question writer that was trying to stick it to the company by sneaking it in and laughing at the subsequent mess.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Apparently, this is a question on a state-mandated test in several states.

Evidence? This sounds like something Snopes would love to dig into .

edit: read article, feel stupid.

 

[Earthborn]

The answers seems simple enough to me. Being annoyed or amused are not reasons to eat something, and the animals weren't amused anyway. For question 1, the only applicable answers are C and D. However, the answer that is certainly correct D, if we don't make any unproven assumptions about the underlying motivations of the animals.

The only correct answer for question 2 is D, since the owl was wise enough to refuse to appear in the silly story.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The wisest is the hare, who seems to have taken on the challenge but then persuaded a rabbit to run the race for him.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I'm crying fowl (or is that foul?) on the poll as given,

From the url in the OP:

Here are two of the questions:
1. Why did the animals eat the pineapple?
a. they were annoyed
b. they were amused
c. they were hungry
d. they wanted to

2. Who was the wisest?
a. the hare
b. moose
c. crow
d. owl

So the answers are obvious after you actually read the story.

The animals ate the pineapple because they were annoyed at being fooled.

And, the owl was the wisest because he did not participate in any of the foolishness.

QED


​

 

[Weak Kitten]

Not only is the story nonsensical, it is rather poorly written. If this is an example of the quality controls they have been using for standardized testing then it is no surprise that students in the USA have been doing poorly.

 

[Beerina]

In the story, a take-off on Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare, a talking pineapple challenges a hare to a race. The other animals wager on the immobile pineapple winning — and ponder whether it’s tricking them.

When the pineapple fails to move and the rabbit wins, the animals dine on the pineapple.

Students were asked two perplexing questions: why did the animals eat the talking fruit, and which animal was wisest?

1. Why did the animals eat the talking fruit?

Because they're murderous ******** who should be jailed.


2. Which animal was wisest?

The hare, for not only not eating the talking pineapple, but for getting the hell out of there before the cops arrived.

 

[Jensen]

So the answers are obvious after you actually read the story.

The animals ate the pineapple because they were annoyed at being fooled.

And, the owl was the wisest because he did not participate in any of the foolishness.

I agree. Why are people finding this difficult? The story even promotes skepticism.

 

[Brian-M]

Reading the full story and the actual questions, the headline stating that it stumps everyone seems a bit exaggerated. Sure it's a silly joke-ridden story, but the questions are answerable. Here's the answers I got...

1: B. In the order in which the events happen
2: C. Annoyed
3: B. The moose
4: A. Suspicious
5: D. They would have been happy to have cheered for a winner
6: C. Has a plan to fool the animals

(Numbering mine.)

For 2 I'm tempted answer A. Hungry, because it's the more amusing answer. But it's unlikely that all the animals would suddenly become hungry with a craving for pineapple at the exact moment the hare crosses the finish line.

For 3, The moose may have been wrong, but I suppose his words were pretty wise.

ETA:

The hare, for not only not eating the talking pineapple, but for getting the hell out of there before the cops arrived.

What makes you think the hare didn't stick around to eat the pineapple? Since the hare was out of sight in under a minute when the race started, then the only way that they'd know the hare had crossed the finish line two hours later would be if the course went in a loop, and ended up back where he started.

Since the hare was there, and it simply says "The animals ate the pineapple", why would you assume the hare was not among them?

And, the owl was the wisest because he did not participate in any of the foolishness.

What makes you think the owl didn't participate? The only mention of the owl was "Pineapples don't have sleeves, an owl said". It doesn't say that it didn't participate.

 

[Michael C]

So the answers are obvious after you actually read the story.

The animals ate the pineapple because they were annoyed at being fooled.

And, the owl was the wisest because he did not participate in any of the foolishness.

These are, according to this article, the correct answers. I contend that the answer to the second question is open to discussion, though. The owl did take part in the foolishness, since the story states that all the animals rooted for the pineapple:

"So the animals, wanting to back a winner, all cheered for the pineapple."

The question was "which animal spoke the wisest words?". The owl said "Pineapples don't have sleeves", which turned out to be true, but was it a particularly wise remark? I guess we are supposed to take it to mean that a pineapple, being nothing but a fruit, has no means of hiding some cunning plan, but since the pineapple in question is a talking pineapple, what's to stop it having other qualities not usually attributed to pineapples? The moral of the story is that "pineapples don't have sleeves", but why shouldn't a talking pineapple in this fantasy world have sleeves, legs, or a jet pack hidden somewhere inside it?

 

[Brian-M]

The question was "which animal spoke the wisest words?". The owl said "Pineapples don't have sleeves", which turned out to be true, but was it a particularly wise remark?

I assumed the owl was making a joke with this self-evident statement. But if these words were said in earnest, they'd indicate that the owl is too stupid to understand figures of speech. So either way, these words were not wise at all.

 

[Jeff Corey]

These are, according to this article, the correct answers...

From the article:
Children's book author Daniel Pinkwater, who wrote the story on which the passage is based, said that he's happy it sparked debate about high stakes testing.

"There wasn't any outrage or confusion until it hit New York, where people are smarter," he said, adding, "It's a nonsense story."

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

To quote one of the Forum's more prolific posters, "I like cake".

 

[epepke]

Not bad as political commentary. "Pineapples don't have sleeves" probably isn't going to become as popular as "the emperor has no clothes" any time soon, though.

 

[Earthborn]

The article linked to in the OP has changed. It now has a different text for the story and for the questions. The story is also better written, so it makes sense that it is the original story by a writer of children's books. The questions also seem a lot more sensible.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The story is an allegory. It makes a lot more sense when you substitute real people for the anthropomorphized animals and fruit.

Pineapple = Romney
Hare = Obama
Other animals = republican voters

The 'pineapple' (Romney) tricked the 'animals' (republicans) into thinking it could win a race against the 'hare' (Obama).

The pineapple was very clever. It secretly wanted the hare to win, but it needed to keep the 'tortoise' (Ron Paul) out of the race. So it convinced the animals that it was the best 'animal' for the job, when in reality it was a 'plant' (fake conservative).

Of course in their rage the animals devoured the pineapple at the end, but it would have rotted away in a few days anyway. What's the shelf life for failed GOP presidential candidates?

 

[bruto]

I think that, like so many tests of this sort, the story itself is not bad, and even the questions would not be so bad, if they called for a written response or discussion, as is happening here. What is bad, and worse than bad, is that there are presumably "right" answers to questions that can clearly be answered intelligently in more than one way if one takes the time to think, instead of attempting merely to second-guess the testers. Thus the answer, for example, to the "wisest" animal question depends on the student assuming that a bluntly clueless response to a figure of speech is wise simply because it's literally true. I'd have said the hare was the wisest, since he called the pineapple's bluff from the start, and backed it up by winning the race. What could he have done that would have been any wiser? One can expect that the animals were angry with the pineapple for tricking them, but must one assume that this is why they ate it? Would they have eaten it if they were not hungry, or just, perhaps, have rolled it into a ditch? They may have killed the pineapple because they were angry, but they ate it because it was food.

Tests like this require a kind of social cleverness, the ability to guess what other people want and not to think too hard about it. Perhaps our mistake here is assuming that this isn't what educators have been after all along.