Kurai Angelo said:
McMullen said:
Therumancer said:
And I thought I built walls of text that could be seen from space.
I'm sorry but it's kind of wasted on me, because whether we're actually more or less educated is a completely tangential point that I'm now sorry I devoted any bytes at all to. My interest is in what kind of problems are on the test, and why deceptive wording is used rather than questions geared towards problem-solving.
I know from experience how long it must have taken you to type that, so I'm sorry, but I have no interest in the more/less educated discussion and therefore no interest in taking the time to read it.
It's sad when someone needs to go into such detail about why they have absolutely no intention of contributing to the subject at hand or even read the orginal post.
God I'm such a hypocrite.
On a side note, I'm sure problem solving shouldn't be hyphenated.
EDIT Actually I'm perfectly certain problem solving shouldn't be hyphenated.
A fair point, but you and Mcmullen are taking things a little too far.
The whole tangent was to establish the situation with American education compared to other parts of the world, and why our testing evolved this way. Given some of the responses I received I wind up focusing on the tangent a bit more than I was supposed to.
The point of selling the whole "more educated" bit is to put things into perspective, especially given a few people who were comparing their own forms of standardized placement testing to that of the US and calling it a joke. The point being that even if slightly offensive, things are differant because the nations and their needs are differant. A nation still struggling to educate it's general population, despite pretensions of being there, can test based purely on academic knowlege and people will place with it and find success. In a nation where education is assumed and high levels of it are very common, the competition has to take place on another level.
Being misleading, and turning it into a problem solving exercise rather than a test of academic ability is the new style of competition for a society at such a high level that basic academic success is already assumed among people at the level to take the test.
Hopefully I explained it better, it all works with the initial point, but I did get carried away with the tangent and justifying what I was basing the point on, rather than the point I was making itself.
