On any standardized test you are going to run into questions that are ambiguous. Try not to get flustered by them. First go through and eliminate the obvious wrong answers. Then if it is still ambiguous try to get inside the test maker's mind a little bit to see where they might be going with the question. Should you have to go through all this? No. But unfortunately it is part of them game.
Survivor DO
Excellent point!!! Unfortunately no one can talk about their exact MCAT experience, but based on the released AAMC exams there are a couple ambiguous questions here and there. I recall one in particular about power lines. But it comes with the territory and people should attack these exactly as you mentioned.
It would be a good question, IMO, if they altered the answer choices slightly (see below). In the author's defense (I'm not him, btw), writing questions is a lot more difficult than you appreciate until you've tried it! Everyone writes one that slips past the editors and that could use some tweaking now and again.
A) Cliff Diving
B) SCUBA Diving
C) Water Skiing
D) Downhill Skiing
I'm actually one of the people who was suppose to help catch things like these. And I managed to miss it. I agree with your correction. At some point there must be a balance between adding enough details to eliminate ambiguity versus over-wording a question. AAMC walks that line well I think. Technically, because you can scuba dive in a lake, it could also be done at elevation. At some point there needs to be some compromise, or else answer choices evolve into the following.
A) Cliff diving into the ocean or a body of water no more than 100 feet above sealevel during a normal day when the atmospheric pressure is within the climatic norm for that region, while on the Earth.
B) SCUBA diving in the ocean or a body of water with a salinity within 15.2% of the global oceanic average no more than 208 feet above sealevel during a normal day in a region where the water temperature is no less than 22.3 degrees Celsius and no greater than 31.6 degrees Celsius, while on the Earth within a region where the latitude falls between 40 degrees and -40 degrees.
C) Water skiing on a body of water no more than 417 feet above sealevel behind an electric boat that does not consume oxygen and therefore does not create local regions of depleted oxygen where the trailing skiier might be subjected to reduced O
2 levels.
D) Downhill skiing on a natural mountian with an elevation above 6400 feet above sealevel and not indoors with atmospheric alteration nor on an artificial surface.
This is a ridiculous extreme, but I present it to emphasize that they don't over-compensate to eliminate all ambiguity. The original question is ambiguous, unless the passage text specifically addressed the elevation of each location. But it's only a few minor tweeks from fitting into the AAMC realm.
Overall I'm really impressed by the dialogue here. The logic and supportive responses in a thread like this is what makes SDN such a fantastic resource.
