i recently took a polygraph exam.  I was asked to give only yes or no responses and was asked is your name xxx?  do you live in the US? then straight to relevent questions.  there were no obvious control questions; however once durring the exam i was asked to provide an answer to a mathmatical question this time that plus the other = what?

all questions in the exam were repeated three times, though the questions were not presented in the same order.  the mathmatical question was only presented once durring the first grouping of the questions asked.  Could this have been the control question? ???

It appears that your polygrapher used the relevant/irrelevant technique with a math question tacked onto the first series as a sort of "control" question. This is sometimes done during an R/I "test" when the subject shows little reaction to any of the relevant questions, in order to see if such a question will produce a reaction. Another technique that may be used for this purpose is for the polygrapher to deliberately mis-state one of the irrelevant questions. Suppose your date of birth is 30 August 1980, and this has been reviewed with you as one of the questions to be asked. The polygrapher might deliberately mis-state your date of birth, asking, "Were you born on 30 August 1981?" Again, the purpose is to see if you will produce a reaction to the question.

Another,

George is on the money here.  Easy relevant/irrelevant questons followed by the math question, which was definitely a control question because of its "surprise and shock" value.  You should have shown a pretty strong reaction to this question to differentiate your responses to the relevant/irrelevant ones.  

Kona

Screw the FBI, I passed for the poly. I lied my tail off. But, if they dont like you you will know...

How about a shot of Whiskey? I had a shot and I passed that bad boy!!!!