I'm a strong advocate of standardized tests. Still, I think it's inevitable that questions like this arise on tests, though, and I'm glad the teacher disputed it.
The problems that bother me most are not problems like this, because I suspect that the test-makers weren't even aware of any disagreement among the authorities. The ones that bother me are the ones that 1) require too much detailed and unnecessary knowledge - like memorization of the formula for the surface area of a cone or 2) Have multiple answers that I perceive are equally bad.
Another example of number 1) was a history question on the Virginia Standards of Learning Test (SOL) that asked students when tobacco was introduced to Virginia and the answers were four choices each spaced only 2 years before the last. Clearly that is a stupid question, imo. I can't think of a specific example of number 2) ... only a general reference ... on the SAT they used to have these questions where you would read a short essay or fragment and then select "the best title" when in my view the best answer was really E) none of the above as they are all equally stupid.
Oh, another class of problems - those that are just outright wrong (again, one would expect a few of these occasionally). One from (I think) SAT from maybe two decades ago was Take two quarters, lay one flat on the table and keep it still. Now Place the second quarter adjacent to the first so they are touching and roll the second quarter around the first (WITHOUT SLIPPAGE). When the second quarter has gotten back to where it started, how many times will George have rotated? The testing service had one answer, and a boy somewhere pointed out to them that the answer which they thought was obvious was wrong. (Try it yourself. It'll slip a bit, but you should get the general idea pretty easily.)
It's unlikely in the extreme that these kinds of questions will seriously effect the scores of most test-takers. (They affected me because I seldom skipped - which is a very bad strategy - though I still do quite well on the tests.) However, they could easily affect the National Merit outcomes. Also, they could affect the people who are borderline in some schools - but the standards are almost always so low anyway, and schools almost always use other criteria. It seems doubtful this would be the make-or-break.
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