I’m sorry if this seems dumb. I tend to take things literally and “mutual” and “exclusive” seem to be antonyms but mutually exclusive is a term used a lot and it confuses the crap out of me. I’m a native English speaker also.
Does it mean that the two things CAN exist together? I feel like my brain does gymnastics trying to understand the term; I’m not a dumb person but this term just totally eludes me!
Please don’t attack me, just trying to not feel stupid.
In: 49
You wouldn’t be the only one – I have to teach “exhaustive and mutually exclusive” in terms of preparing surveys. The majority of students struggle to carry this out, even if they can perfectly recite the definitions. It just means that anyone taking your survey should have one and only one answer that fits them – no overlap in the answers, but also they cover all possibilities. This is why so many survey questions have an “other” choice.
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