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redrum
from the allman brothers band (Ireland) on 2007-04-25 01:22 [#02075514]
Points: 12878 Status: Addict
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from the bbc
I can't believe that such a question would be asked of English students in their first year of university.
I don't know which university it is, or what course it's from, but it's fucking shocking. Irish students do stuff like this when they're 12.
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redrum
from the allman brothers band (Ireland) on 2007-04-25 01:25 [#02075515]
Points: 12878 Status: Addict
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ah:
"UK chemistry departments are often world-renowned for their creativity; however, mathematics tests set in England by many universities for undergraduate chemistry students in their first term to diagnose remedial requirements are disconcertingly simple.
yeah, that a-level system is really great guys, keep up the good work
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zoomancer
from Kabul (Afghanistan) on 2007-04-25 01:26 [#02075516]
Points: 1215 Status: Regular
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just goes to show the chinese live in the fourth dimension while the rest are in flatlands
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unabomber
from Palma de Mallorca (Spain) on 2007-04-25 01:29 [#02075517]
Points: 3756 Status: Regular
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I was looking at the chinese test and thinking: Christ! Irish students must be ace if they do that when they are 12! I can't even understand!
Then I understood the post...
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DirtyPriest
from Copenhagen (Denmark) on 2007-04-25 01:33 [#02075521]
Points: 5499 Status: Lurker
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English people are stupid LOL
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redrum
from the allman brothers band (Ireland) on 2007-04-25 01:35 [#02075524]
Points: 12878 Status: Addict | Followup to unabomber: #02075517
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yea sorry, the post is a little misleading.. maybe intentionally so ;)
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unabomber
from Palma de Mallorca (Spain) on 2007-04-25 01:43 [#02075527]
Points: 3756 Status: Regular
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by the way, Mr. Redrum, the other day I was sailin' through my books and saw one and thought:
Hey, this one's for Redrum! Gotta recomend it to him!
And it's on topic!
Giroux, Henry A. Theory and resistance in education : a pedagogy for the opposition Critical perspectives in social theory. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey, 1983.
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zoomancer
from Kabul (Afghanistan) on 2007-04-25 01:44 [#02075528]
Points: 1215 Status: Regular
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I still cant believe they are using all this hypergoogloid geomorphic calcutheorems to test english... no wonder they have trouble speaking it properly...
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redrum
from the allman brothers band (Ireland) on 2007-04-25 01:48 [#02075532]
Points: 12878 Status: Addict | Followup to unabomber: #02075527
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there's a big book fair on in university at the moment, i'll have a look around and see if i can find it! cheers.
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unabomber
from Palma de Mallorca (Spain) on 2007-04-25 01:56 [#02075536]
Points: 3756 Status: Regular
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Good luck in your quest!
Also on topic by Noam...
What knowledge and skills are worthwhile learning? What are the goals of education?
The school system tries to repress independence; it tries to teach obedience. Kids and other people are not induced to challenge and question. In school one is to repeat, obey, follow orders, and so on. ... designed to teach obedience and conformity and prevent the child's natural capacities from developing. Education is a period of regimentation and control, part of which involves direct indoctrination, providing a system of false beliefs. Teaching should not be compared to filling a bottle with water but rather to helping a flower to grow in its own way. Part of real education would be to make sure people understand very early on that the burden of proof is on those who claim the legitimacy of authority.
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B123
from The wicked underbelly (Australia) on 2007-04-25 07:34 [#02075657]
Points: 1361 Status: Lurker
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i had a terrible public education and it really annoys me. i feel cheated out of an equal opportunity.
hopefully we will see a return to high quality public education in coming years, get jamie oliver on the job.
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EVOL
from a long time ago on 2007-04-25 07:56 [#02075670]
Points: 4921 Status: Lurker
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look, the people in control of the economy and the government, bankers, the ones who create money or debt rather, realize that oil which is neccessary for everything you see around you will not last. they are buying so much oil as they possibly can produce and afford and are stockpiling it in private reserves while raising the prices for the general consumer of petrol so that eventually the consumer rate of consumption of oil will slow down to an almost standstill that way they will not run out completely and still be able to manufacture products based soley on the existence of oil not just as a means of energy but for chemical synthetics ie plastic and the likes, so that they can still travel in planes and drive and access the internet, which the entire cycle of all those things relies on oil, to make machine parts, to make assembly robots, to make aluminum, to make feul, to make glass, and etc... so that they can remain the elite class superior to all others and use money as a means of slavery to get people to do their bidding ie military personel to protect them from the dissidents ... we are fucked. of course they're not gonna educate us about the actual reality of how the system works that produces educational systems in the first place. who was dumb enough to let the state control the proliferation of information and ideas in the first place? we are fucked! trying to get everyone to change their thoughts on society and culture is like throwing a coin into the ocean, nothing will change. fucked. the things that make this world so "small" now will be like the power of gods in the hands of a few, the rest of us will be thrown back into medieval times of horse drawn carts and farms as a means to survive at all.
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Drunken Mastah
from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2007-04-25 08:05 [#02075683]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag
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How to produce a rebellion, lesson 1:
Have a set of rules.
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futureimage
from buy FIR from Juno (United Kingdom) on 2007-04-25 10:56 [#02075778]
Points: 6427 Status: Lurker
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I'll give an example GCSE question that I laughed for 10 minutes solid in in the last chemistry test I had:
"Why weren't Wegener's views accepted at the time of publication?:
-Older theories were already proven correct. -Movement of tectonic plates was not known. -He was a German.
I really hope the actual GCSE test isn't that retarded, otherwise I'll be disqualified for laughing.
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bogala
from NYC (United States) on 2007-04-25 13:07 [#02075806]
Points: 5125 Status: Regular
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School is about creating little worker bees. I liked your post unabomber. I act like such a nervous cunt around authority figures, still. I have a shit meaningless job, but I still stutter, get nervous and script my words around my bosses all thanks to my overbearing teachers from many years ago.
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futureimage
from buy FIR from Juno (United Kingdom) on 2007-04-25 13:12 [#02075807]
Points: 6427 Status: Lurker | Followup to bogala: #02075806
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I love PSE (social skills :P) lessons: "Next lesson we're going to learn about relationships" because of course, love is something that you learn in a classroom, not something that's free.
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jonesy
from Lisboa (Portugal) on 2007-04-25 13:36 [#02075811]
Points: 6650 Status: Lurker | Followup to futureimage: #02075807
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our teacher saw them as a forum to discuss the ins and outs (quite literally) of her sex life. dirrty fucker.
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thatne
from United States on 2007-04-25 14:01 [#02075815]
Points: 3026 Status: Lurker
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it'd be different if they didn't only ask the easy one
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fleetmouse
from Horny for Truth on 2007-04-25 14:15 [#02075817]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker
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Pfffft. Neither of those test the EMOTIONAL intelligence.
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The_Shark
on 2007-04-25 14:29 [#02075820]
Points: 292 Status: Addict
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Do you ever think the oil industry might make a big fuss about how important it is as a marketing thing?
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The_Shark
on 2007-04-25 14:35 [#02075822]
Points: 292 Status: Addict
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What would be the ultimate Ad compaign but to go to war with another country, orchesatrate violence, never openly admit why you were doing it but let it tacitly be known it was because oil was *that* important that people would be willing to waste lives as the alternative would be worse.
Imagine if the milk marketing board had their money?
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bogala
from NYC (United States) on 2007-04-25 14:54 [#02075828]
Points: 5125 Status: Regular
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Aphex cares about politics.
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mimi
on 2007-04-25 18:38 [#02075926]
Points: 5721 Status: Regular | Followup to thatne: #02075815
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so, it's a diagnostic test, is that the same as a placement exam? if so, i am sure this is not the only question on the test. at least in my experiences with placement testing, a variety of questions from different skill sets are asked.
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dave_g
from United Kingdom on 2007-04-26 10:28 [#02076147]
Points: 3372 Status: Lurker
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From personal experience, I know that foreign students are much better than me at mathmatics, yet they often lack lateral or logical thought processes.
My degree is electrical and electronic engineering, so as one might expect is quite mathmatical. Maths is probably my weakest point in the degree.
Some of the foreign students, especially the indians and chinese are very good at maths, simply through lots of practise from an early age and almost learning things "parrot fashion".
Just because they are good at maths doesn't mean they are necessarily bright. I find that they are very un-resourceful and cannot adapt to situations half as well as I can. They cannot think of alternatives and solve engineering "problems" or do things of a practical nature very well at all sometimes!
Most heavy mathematics are done in software simulations now, so it is much more important to be able to roughly know what you want and let the computer "fine tune" things. Being able to think of a lateral, novel way to solve a problem is much more important than being able to emulate a computer! Good engineers do what computers can't do: they think "outside the box", not number crunch.
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blrr
from the block on 2007-04-26 11:34 [#02076172]
Points: 585 Status: Lurker | Followup to redrum: #02075514
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and before you start banging on do you even know how many chinese students got the question right? do you know how many english students got the question right?
shit, i just asked my friend an incredibly complex question about modelling fluid flows... i guess he must be really smart. I asked another friend what 1 + 1 is... he must be really stupid.
...
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Ceri JC
from Jefferson City (United States) on 2007-05-01 05:12 [#02077927]
Points: 23533 Status: Moderator | Followup to dave_g: #02076147 | Show recordbag
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dave_g is correct. I study computing, which historically, has always been linked with mathematics, almost to the extent that physics has been. I was surprised when I was talking to universities when I was looking at doing my first degree that most insisted on having a maths A-level. I pointed out that (even back then) only a few parts of maths a-level were relevant to computing (primarily stats, arrays and matrices) and that I could do all of those quite competently. The place that accepted me insist I do a remedial maths class for the first 2 years to make up for this lack of maths experience. Unsuprisingly, I passed them fine and even went on to do what was probably the most maths-heavy dissertation, which primarily involved manipulations on large arrays of numbers. I've since found out that the university has canned those remedial classes precisely because they've decided maths is comparatively unimportant in computng.
I'll most likely do a doctorate in it at some point in the next five years and it's only for that (and the neccessary handling/collating of large amounts of figures for the research) that I will be doing a maths a-level at night class next year.
I have a lot of experience of studying and working with people from chinese and indian universities and I'll say the same thing as dave, great at maths, not so good at "original thought". I'm not saying one is better than the other and indeed in some situations, you need both, but the notion that their academic institutions are far better than ours is an inaccurate one. As blrr says, I'd be interested to see figures on how many got each question right. Even if there is a gulf between the two, it's farily obvious that the chinese question is the hardest they could find at all chinese universities, whereas the UK one probably is the easiest in the UK.
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