Comprendre les questions

 

Je ne cherche pas à connaître les réponses, je cherche à comprendre les questions // I don't seek to know the answers, I seek to understand the questions -- Confucius

I don't know about you, but to me the phrase above is about university exams. You know, you get your selection of questions, and then a fog descends on your brain and you can't, for the life of you, understand what are they all about.

I am reasonably sure Confucius meant something else, something less practical, as he was wont to do. But I am no Confucius.

Unless I am badly mistaken, the diagram on the wall is showing the dreaded Krebs cycle. If so, the cat and his classmates must be doing a biochemistry exam.  No wonder he is just sitting there, staring at the questions.

Un chat parisien peut-il s'inscrire à la bibliothèque de la Sorbonne s'il habite à Paris?

Un chat parisien peut-il s'inscrire à la bibliothèque de la Sorbonne s'il habite à Paris? //  Can a parisian cat join the library of Sorbonne if he lives in Paris?

Today, we had a test of "comprehension of written text". In order to prepare us for it, our teacher asked us to read the membership rules of the library of Sorbonne and choose "true" or "false" for each of seven statements.

First statement was "A student from Las Palmas Uni can join the library" The answer was (mostly*) "false", because those elitist bastards in Sorbonne ask you to be either a french student above certain year, or a professor, or a scientist, etc. Students of LPU didn't fall into any of those categories.

Second statement was: "If you live in a shared flat in Paris, you can come and join the library". Most people answered "false".  And !SUDDENLY! a huge argument ensued. The main arguments for saying "true" were, it seems "why would you deny a poor guy who shares a flat in Paris his membership? Doesn't he have a right to at least come and try, what if he does qualify?" and "but you should consider each question separately".  Set theory? Necessary and Sufficient conditions? Coherency? Never mind all that.

I do hope the idea was to make us read every text very, very carefully. But by the end of the discussion the answer to a simple yes/no question like "Is your name Tutankhamun?" could as well be "A Suffusion of Yellow".

(Very confused) sumo wrestler cat wishes to get a library card. Can he please? He brought a lot of papers, and he even has a baguette to prove his residence. He is wearing a beret, for God's sake. What else can you possibly want of a cat? It doesn't say anywhere cats can't join.

-----------
* - mostly, because there exist a small matter of laissez-passer temporaire (temporary pass) which can be obtained under certain circumstances. But let's not get (even more) confused.