“He ran through a list of possible crimes and vices until he found himself faced with the truth of Paolo’s claims: most of the Seven Deadly Sins were no longer so. Who would kill in order not to be exposed as having been guilty of gluttony, of sloth, of envy, or pride? Only lust remained or anger if it lead to violence, and avarice, if it could be interpreted as meaning bribe-taking. For the rest, no one any longer cared. Paradise, he had been told as a child, was a sinless world, but this brave new, post-sinful ,world in which he found himself was hardly to be confused with paradise.” (Emphasis added.)
~Donna Leon, Doctored Evidence
This, that and the other thing 
I think this merits further investigation.
In the further post, by you reading the book, or by thinking about it more? Or all of these?
D: All of the above. I’ve learned, when that is an option, the answer is always “all of the above.”
I was just thinking about multiple choice questions and realized that to have a multiple choice test that really tests knowledge, you have to allow for: choices, all of the above, none of the above, A&B, C&D, A&D, etc. Had a sociology professor who was great at those. 🙂
Here’s the thing about those kinds of questions. They should just be essay questions. I find lately that test questions, and exercise questions for that matter, are structured in a way that makes me what to answer by analyzing the question itself. I’ll give you an example.
Last semester I had to read a scenario involving an ethical dilemma and answer if I felt the person acted ethically or not and why or why not. The question was worded oddly, I thought, and so I began my answer with this remark: “I believe the question is subjective. By asking if I feel the person acted ethically, I am being asked to substitute my values for their’s, and I believe that is where we often go wrong as a society.”
Of course, I knew the answer the professor was looking for and I did give an appropriate answer. But…I think if questions are intended to assess knowledge and comprehension, then they should not ask how I feel about this or that. Does that even make sense?
I think that depending upon the type of information being sought, a well-constructed multiple choice question can be fine and useful. The type of question you mentioned, essay, when worded that way, really can’t be graded because it’s asking for your opinion. If the idea is to get how you feel, backed up by the reasoning, then perhaps it might be all right. But as you say, how you feel about something is subjective and as there’s generally a “right” answer the professor wants, not really fair as written. So yes, that makes sense.