What causes this error?

[Justin_]

my suggestion Anubis is that you avoid writing repitious code. It makes you feel like you know what your doing maybe but all it is is you being stuck in your ways and not wanting to learn new stuff. Just keep learning, do some examples, but never over do it. Writing a series of if statements does not mean you can program.

[wtd]

Indeed. A serious problem with CS education, at least at the HS level seems to be that assignments are not carefully developed to teach a specific set of important skills.

[AnubisProgrammer]

I agree Justin_. This program was designed by a student in the class (my teacher is making two students make up the assignments). It was designed for if statements. I thought it was a little overkill and very redundant. And yes, the assignments we get don't specify what we're supposed to learn from them. They just tell us to do it. It really sucks. But, might as well try and develop the basics in class, then learn new things on my own time.