Homework questions, what do you think?

My guess is that a lot of these askers have been told explicitly not to use on-line search engines (Should we be promoting Yahoo! over Google here?), or Wikipedia. This way they get an answer that has plausible attainability as a direct quote from an online site, while still not having to do _any_ research or book work.

Genius, I tell you!

... by the way, can you tell me about Beethoven or Bach or Mozart or someone?

Yes - lazy - and also not aware that there are better places to look. They are accustomed to spoon-feeding. I taught middle and HS for over 30 years in NY state. I am not going to get into NCLB, and the ills of society in general - and I taught in an urban/suburban consolidated district. When I has Study Hall supervision, I would tell the kids the subjects that I was really good at, and those that I had limited current expertise. I would tell them that I would do ONE problem ten times, until they understood - but would NOT do a second - a third - etc. They figured out that having another teacher's viewpoint was often very clarifying- but that I was no pushover. I maintain that presence here. I helped Azaroth (as did others) because we KNOW her - and her confusion was boiled donw to ONE point - the diminished fifth, which some non-Theory major teacher probably explained hastily, poorly, or not at all. Since I could analyze her pattern of answers and distill her problem, I was able to help. Otherwise - I think I am the Queen of *DYOH*!!!