In the ancient Greek alphabet, I can be found.
I’m how many acrosses go all the way ’round.
I’m irrational, infinite, yet strictly bound,
And a tasty dessert shares the way that I sound.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Asher. See comments for answer.

From Hamlet:

I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Math prognosticator Nate Silver predicted the whole state finishing roll, one-none.

Fun hobby!

From Twelfth Night:

One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,
A natural perspective, that is and is not!

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

In an occasion vociferous as debate, the president was real, not that naive opponent.

UPDATE: I’m having problems loading the embedded video, so here’s a direct link.

From Romeo and Juliet:

But, let them measure us by what they will,
We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The melee damage-buy seems mutual where Rahm blew a test-result law by the union.

Jack Prospero buys individual hard-bound volumes of 31 different Shakespeare plays and an empty six-shelf bookcase to put them in.

He puts 3 plays each on the first and second shelves. He puts 5 plays each on the third and fourth shelves. He puts 7 plays on the fifth shelf, and 8 plays on the sixth shelf.

Within each shelf, the plays are in alphabetical order. The titles are exactly as they appear on this list. Ignoring any leading “The” or “A” articles, they are alphabetized by these exact titles.

And, as it turns out, the plays within each shelf are also in exactly the same order as they appear throughout that very same list!

One of the six shelves has only plays with the letter “F” somewhere in the title. A different shelf has no plays with any punctuation marks in the title. One shelf has more than half of its plays containing the word “King” in the title. Pairs of shelves with the same number of books in each are ordered alphabetically by first title.

Can you list the plays as they appear on each shelf?

UPDATE: Puzzle solved by ArtVark. See comments for answer.

Speaking of palindromes, I’ve been seeing a really good one making the social media rounds:

Wonder if Sununu’s fired now.

This is in response to the following interview he did with Soledad O’Brien, which I wish every voter in America could see:

In Russian Roulette, a six-chambered revolver is loaded with one round, the cylinder is spun to place the round in a random position, and participants take turns pointing the gun to their heads and pulling the trigger until one player loses.

Imagine you are playing this game (for whatever reason) with one other person, but do not wish to die.

1. Assume there is one round and the cylinder is spun only once, at the beginning of the game. Is it better to go first or second?

2. Assume there is one round and the cylinder is spun after each player’s turn. Is it better to go first or second?

3. Assume there are two rounds in random position and the cylinder is spun only once, at the beginning of the game. Is it better to go first or second?

4. Assume there are two rounds in random position. The first player shoots an empty chamber. You have the option of shooting the gun as is, or spinning the cylinder first. Which do you choose?

5. Assume there are two rounds in a random position – but you are told that the two rounds are in consecutive chambers. The first player shoots an empty chamber. You have the option of shooting the gun as is, or spinning the cylinder first. Which do you choose?

6. Assume there are two rounds in a random position – but you are told that the two rounds are in consecutive chambers. The cylinder is spun only once, at the beginning of the game. Is it better to go first or second?

These are pure probability questions, for entertainment purposes only. Shakespeare Teacher in no way condones the use of firearms in this manner.

This week’s testing item is a favorite of mine to use as an example, because it illustrates just how careful we need to be when looking at standardized testing data.

We will be looking at Item 16 on the 2009 New York State Grade 6 Exam. The performance indicator is “5.G14 Calculate perimeter of basic geometric shapes drawn on a coordinate plane (rectangles and shapes composed of rectangles having sides with integer lengths and parallel to the axes).” You can click the figure below to enlarge.

What is this question testing? Does it fit the performance indicator? Which of the wrong answers would you predict students would choose the most often? Why? What would students need to know and be able to do to answer this question correctly?

What number, when written as a word in English, has all of its letters in alphabetical order?

For example, “six” doesn’t work, because the letter S comes before the letter I in the word, but S comes after I in the alphabet.

The word “begin” has all five of its letters in alphabetical order, but, of course, it is not a number.

Can you find the only number that meets this requirement?

UPDATE: Number identified by Jeff. See comments for answer.

I thought it might be fun to try something new with the “Question of the Week” feature here on the blog. Instead of asking my readers a question, I will offer up a question from the statewide examinations that New York City students take each year.

The purpose of this will not be for you to try to provide the correct answer, but rather to join me in examining the question. What does it tell us about student understanding? What do each of the wrong answers mean? What is this question testing? What is it really testing? What would students need to know and be able to do to answer this question correctly?

Sound like fun?

To differentiate this feature from the Question of the Week, I’ll call this the Item of the Week, which is what we call questions in the parlance of standardized testing.

Today’s item comes from the 2010 New York State Grade 4 Mathematics Exam. The strand is Measurement and the performance indicator is “4.M04 Select tools and units appropriate to the mass of the object being measured (grams and kilograms).” You can click the image for a larger view.

I like the layering of this question. First of all, the student needs to know which units measure mass and which don’t. If they answer A or D, they don’t. But to choose between B and C, students need to have some idea of how much a gram really is.

Sometimes these questions will have distractor answers that use numbers from the problem to try to trick students into choosing them. But there are no numbers in this problem. And all of the answers use the same number.

The trick here is in the first sentence. The fact that Mr. Patel moved his chair across the room is not relevant. But if you don’t know what “mass” means, that first sentence might trick you into thinking you are looking for a distance, in which case you might choose D. This assumes, of course, that you have no idea how long a kilometer is.

All in all, it seems like a pretty fair question that tests what it purports to test. In practice, it turned out to be one of the harder items for New York City students taking this exam.

As always, I invite further discussion.