Look. I am not arguing that this is an appropriate test.
I think the test is stupid, the concept is stupid, and requiring someone to pass the test in order to vote is stupid, but let’s not get our expectations too high. What did we expect? It was a test designed and administered by liberals.
But the test is not impossible unless you are required to get every answer correct, and then it wouldn’t be impossible, just very hard. My objection is with Slate characterizing it as impossible. I concede that it WILL be impossible for someone with little or no reading skills or intellectual comprehension skills.
And we should note that nowhere in the article does it say what a passing grade would be.
I don’t think question #27 is a good example of an illogical question. It is a question designed to trip you up, but it is a completely solvable word puzzle. That question simply requires that you INTERPRET (not “guess”) what they are asking you. To have to “guess” means it is uninterpretable.
We are in 100% agreement on that.
But the test is not impossible unless you are required to get every answer correct, and then it wouldn’t be impossible, just very hard.
I would disagree with you that question 27 is a completely solvable word puzzle because the lack of punctuation in the question leads to the logical dilemma that each of the following answers could be "correct", when there is supposed to be only one correct answer:
"right"
"right from the left to the right"
"right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here"
And question 30 lacks a necessary verb. Is one supposed to correctly guess the missing verb?