Vanguard's Australian operations are gaining steam, and like their U.S. counterparts, the Australian Vanguard team members are big proponents of index investing. But in the rush to develop investors' "indexing quotients" or, as Vanguard likes to put it, their IQs, the company's Plain Talk Library confuses rather than educates. In one online "test," my favorite question reads: "True or false. An index must hold all of the securities in a particular index."

You and I know the answer is "true." Of course an index must hold all the securities in an index. Duh! But because Vanguard meant to ask if an index fund must hold all the securities, the true answer is "false."

I'm assuming this is just some of that down-under humor, mate.