jQuery 1.10.1 setting non existing value on select

Answer 1

I think you want to try,

$('#test').val(2);

none is selected (or default selected) if the drop-down value not exists.

Demo

The issue comes in Blackberry 4.7 having attributes.value

The change in 1.9 version and 1.10 version are

jQuery 1.9.1 hook

jQuery.extend({
    valHooks: {
        option: {
            get: function( elem ) {
                // attributes.value is undefined in Blackberry 4.7 but
                // uses .value. See #6932
                var val = elem.attributes.value;
                return !val || val.specified ? elem.value : elem.text;
            }
        },

And jQuery 1.10 hook

jQuery.extend({
    valHooks: {
        option: {
            get: function( elem ) {
                // Use proper attribute retrieval(#6932, #12072)
                var val = jQuery.find.attr( elem, "value" );
                return val != null ?
                    val :
                    elem.text;
            }
        }

Read #6932 Blackberry 4.7: .val() on empty option fails