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Let me expand on that just a little.

2
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Let me make the distinction here 
between a question and a quiz –

3
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because it's very important.

4
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Now, if I'm walking, as I do, 
on the streets of Boston --

5
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(I don't own a car.)

6
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– and a car comes up along side, 
and somebody sticks his head

7
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out the window and says,
"Hey, Mister," or whatever,

8
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"can you tell us how to 
get to Newbury Street?"

9
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or "Copley Square," or 
wherever it happens to be,

10
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that's a question.
They don't know.

11
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They want to know.
They think I know.

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So they ask me a question, hoping 
to get from me the right answer --

13
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which they don't have.

14
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Now that's a legitimate question.
That's a search for information.

15
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A quiz is something very different.

16
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It <i>sounds</i> like a question –
It uses the same words.

17
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But the intention is 
altogether different.

18
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I would be asking you a quiz if, believing 
that <i>I</i> had the answer to something,

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I asked you a question to 
make sure that <i>you</i> had it.

20
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In other words, this is a way
of testing your knowledge --

21
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of making sure that your
knowledge agrees with mine.

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Now little children understand very clearly 
the difference between quizzes and questions.

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Some of you will have had 
the experience of asking

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your little three year old or 
four year old a quiz-type question.

25
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And you may get the 
answer, "I don't know" --

26
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which is just a child's way 
of refusing to answer what he/she
knows is not a real question,

27
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not a serious question,
not an honest question.

28
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Or you may get some silly answer.
That's another way of disposing of it.

29
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One mother tells me that when she occasionally
loses her common sense for a second,

30
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and asks her child a kind of quiz type question,
the child turns right around and asks her one.

31
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Little children understand
that this is a quiz, not a question.

32
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And they further understand
that all that all quiz-type questions

33
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are a statement of lack of confidence.


34
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This is a vote of no confidence.

35
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Children resist being asked quiz-type questions
for the same type of reason they resist

36
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being taught things when they 
haven't asked for them --

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because they realize 
that this is you stating:

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"I don't really think you know this."

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This is a statement of 
lack of trust and confidence.

40
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And so they tend to react to it 
with a lot of anger and resistance --

41
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which I think is altogether proper.

42
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And I'd hope when we get these signals,
we would pay attention to them.