Enchantermon on 23/5/2010 at 12:57
Quote Posted by Pardoner
Even if you can, the SAT is a terrible example. Comprehension and analytical skill there may hurt your grade; understanding the logic of the test writers and graders is key . . .
I didn't try to understand the logic of the test writers, I worked completely with comprehending the questions and answers and scored 670 (on the English part, 1270 overall). That's only 130 from perfect; not a bad score. Now, granted, I took the old SAT where the max score was 1600. That one didn't have an essay section, so all the grading was objective. Perhaps the new test has changed some of this, I don't know.
Aerothorn on 24/5/2010 at 03:42
I go to a school without tests and am damn glad I do. Don't get me wrong, writing papers or doing presentations if far more difficulty than exams, but I think it's a lot better for me (and most people!) in the long run.
CCCToad on 24/5/2010 at 04:23
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
I didn't try to understand the logic of the test writers, I worked completely with comprehending the questions and answers and scored 670 (on the English part, 1270 overall). That's only 130 from perfect; not a bad score. Now, granted, I took the old SAT where the max score was 1600. That one didn't have an essay section, so all the grading was objective. Perhaps the new test has changed some of this, I don't know.
I found him to be correct: I took the test with a mentality of getting inside the test writer's head, and scored 800 on the math with 750 verbal. The trick is (in the math section at least), that there's always at least one "obvious" wrong answer, and one answer thats too easy/obvious to be true, and one of the others is correct. In a lot of cases, you can use tricks like counting decimal places to narrow down the answers considerably or even figure out the actual answer without doing the calculations they expect you to. The SAT is limited the same way any multiple choice test is: the "maximum" it can measure is you being smarter than the person who writes the test.
Now, in regards to what Texas is doing, its helpful to take off the ideological blinders. I see a lot of people screaming bloody murder about how it is an unprecedented brainwashing of our youngins. On the right, they are cheering that they will finally inculcate the "Right"(pun) ideas into the youth. As usual, the partisan bent causes people to mouth hypocrisy with a straight face.
What many on the left have ignored is that the preaching of falsehoods rooted in partisan ideology has been going on for years in America. In fact, the Texas decision was partly in response to proposed textbook revisions which included such changes as omitting mention of Christopher Columbus. My own textbooks inaccurately stereotyped Medieval Europe as disease ridden and ignorant, stating that humanity moved forward in the Renaissance due to the lack of Church control. This is false, as discussed by other posters in other threads: most advancements happened outside church, and the loss of old church codes resulted in significant
declines in Freedom for the lower and middle classes. There are also (a few) portions of their new curriculum that are accurate: McCarthy's trials were not a random witch hunt(like the HUAC), but were based on interceptions of Soviet communications.
Typically, the Right isn't any better. I seem to recall that the Republicans were outraged (and very recently) over schoolchildren being made to sing a pro-Obama song in class. To turn around and cheer the implementation of a curriculum implemented largely for partisan reasons is yet another demonstration that the Republican establishment is full of crap. To them, implement a small and fair government is something that only other people should have to do.
edit: to avoid a doublepost
Quote:
Skills are more important than grades.
Not true, but neither was the point you were refuting. According to a study cited by John T. Reed, the biggest factor affecting your advancement in a business is not skill or smarts, but flattery.
Turtle on 24/5/2010 at 21:31
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
doing presentations if far more difficulty than exams.
Hear, hear.
Shug on 24/5/2010 at 21:45
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
writing papers or doing presentations if far more difficulty than exams,
Forgot to spellcheck? C-.
Enchantermon on 24/5/2010 at 21:47
Quote Posted by CCCToad
I found him to be correct: I took the test with a mentality of getting inside the test writer's head, and scored 800 on the math with 750 verbal. The trick is (in the math section at least), that there's always at least one "obvious" wrong answer, and one answer thats too easy/obvious to be true, and one of the others is correct.
That's not getting inside the test writer's head, that's logical deduction.
Quote Posted by CCCToad
According to a study cited by John T. Reed, the biggest factor affecting your advancement in a business is not skill or smarts, but flattery.
That only asserts that flattery is more important than skills or smarts, not that smarts are more important than skills. If you have a perfect GPA but can't practically apply what you learned, you're not going to go very far.
demagogue on 24/5/2010 at 23:09
I think that's giving most jobs too much credit. The most important skill in most jobs, in my experience -- once the learning curve is passed, of course-- is fighting off boredom and tolerating stupidity. Any reasonably intelligent person could do it if properly trained. And as for that statistic about flattery, my gut interpretation would be that it's more a case of correlation not causation: if a person actually gives two shits about the stupid and worthless work they do, chances are they'll be more likely to succeed at it and flatter their idiot boss. And people that tend to be more intelligent understand how stupid and worthless the work actually is and are content to do just enough to keep getting paid and spending their free time (and the bulk of their energy and creativity) doing more important and interesting things.
Enchantermon on 24/5/2010 at 23:41
But you still have to actually do something. I just completed a six week internship at a help desk. I was given several things to do over the course of time, and as I worked on them, I also observed my coworkers. They weren't just sitting around performing tasks trained monkeys could do. Occasionally all it took was remoting into a computer and running a malware scan, but at other times smartphone issues needed to be hammered out, programs had to undergo troubleshooting, complex problems requiring research and critical thinking needed to be solved. FOG crashed and we had to get it working again (trickier than it sounds). An Exchange drive committed suicide and we had to launch into crisis management. Several times we sat there and bounced ideas around about possible solutions or fixes that required more than knowing the very basics of networking.
For me personally, I did what I was asked to the best of my ability, even though some of it was less than savory. I just did it. No flattery was involved. As my internship came to a close, my boss thanked me time and time again for my efforts and was genuinely dismayed that she was losing me. Why? It wasn't flattery. It was because I was a hard worker. It was because I could do what I had learned.
CCCToad on 24/5/2010 at 23:55
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
That's not getting inside the test writer's head, that's logical deduction.
Its a bit of an arbitrary distinction: there is going to be some level of logic involved in getting inside the test writer's head. What I meant is that logically solving the question is less important than figuring out which options were placed in the question just to be disqualified and which are placed there for the purpose of misleading the test taker.
Thief13x on 25/5/2010 at 00:54
I agree with Enchantermon. Possibly to my detriment, I'm a firm believer in not kissing corporate ass, or trying to befriend 'the right people', or anything else to get a job/get ahead - just working hard. I too had an internship over the summer and with this philosophy, landed a job when they weren't hiring. Funny you mentioned it, I now work level 3 support once every few months as part of my job.
