An education department's note sets the reading of Class 5 pupils in the district's aided schools against that in its government schools and finds the aided schools far ahead: 78 in every hundred of their pupils were found able to read the passage put to them, against 54 in every hundred in the government schools. A footnote records that the aided schools' pupils were tested on a passage from the Class 3 textbook and the government schools' pupils on a passage from the Class 5 textbook. The note's conclusion is most open to criticism because

Two figures may be set against each other only where they answer the same question, and here they answer two: how many children can read an easy passage, and how many can read a hard one. Every pupil in the district might read equally well and the two shares would still part company by exactly this sort of margin, so the twenty-four points belong at least partly to the choice of passage. The number of pupils tested would bear on how firm each figure is, but a firm figure for an easy passage still cannot be set beside a firm figure for a hard one. Giving shares instead of counts is a matter of presentation and the counts can be recovered from the shares. And the fourth option answers a claim the note never makes, since a note about reading need not hold that reading is everything.