I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#201

Post by m0zg » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:00 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #119

m0zg wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably because you've read it in English. For the life of me I don't get why non-Russian people read Russian classical literature. Just don't. It is true that there aren't really any Western authors of the same stature as Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, but really, you aren't really reading what they wrote. Their work requires quite a bit of thought, and that thought requires quite a bit built-in stuff that a native…

> For the life of me I don't get why non-Russian people read Russian classical literature. > What remains is still formidable I think you answered your own question there. As for the rest of your comment, yes, someone without the cultural background will miss something. But the same goes for those not born in the same age, those of a different gender than the author, those of a different social standing and so on. Th…

It's not "ancient", really. Things are largely the same in Russia as they were 150-200 years ago, they even have something like a Tsar now: Putin. People are largely the same, too. Sure, there are cars and cell phones and internet now, but at a deeper level the people haven't really changed, and they can still imagine the life of a 19th century Russian aristocrat or commoner much better than, say, someone from the US or Western Europe, perhaps with the exception of France, owing to the cultural affinity between the two countries' aristocracies in the 19th century.

>> is one of the most enriching things you can do short of traveling

I agree with you there. I was just explaining to the OP the likely reasons why he didn't enjoy what I consider to be one of the best novels ever written.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#202

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:01 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #177

TeMPOraL wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's call spade a spade: if a literary critic is creating an interpretation that goes beyond what the author intended to convey, they're pulling meaning out of their ass. It's completely arbitrary and has no validity; at best it boils down to psychoanalyzing the author (and the critic is not qualified for that), trying to guess what the author "truly wanted" to say without realizing they want it to say. A simple exp…

Not quite. The humanities are fundamentally about persuasion , not about objectivity. There is no objectivity in the arts, creators are not the last word on their work [1], and any good observation is considered a success if it's persuasive to at least some people some of the time. A lot of academic-level criticism is really an advanced game of "Hunt the hidden metaphor." People can take it or leave it, but as a past…

Fair. Then I guess my argument boils down to, "I wish high-school teachers and a bunch of other people stopped doing that".

I can appreciate the argument of a work of art being like a mirror, where looking at it reveals as much about it as it does about the person looking. I can appreciate "hunt the hidden metaphor" exercises and even "bend the interpretation so hard to make the book be about something it obviously isn't" games. I've done both, and I enjoyed it - it's a nice workout for imagination and arguing skills. But I wish it was presented as such, clearly labeled as intellectual entertainment. As it is, the way I - and perhaps many other people in this thread - was exposed to literary criticism always made the critics look like historians - dispensing factual, if not always obvious, knowledge about works of literature.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#203

Post by goodcanadian » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:05 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #32

It's not the only place in the world where the work (educating students) is jeopardised by the evaluation of that work (tests). Tests in schools are even worse, though, because they conflate 2 completely separate issues: the success of the efforts of the education system and the success of the efforts of the student. On the other hand, I will say that standardised testing is good at one thing: predicting which studen…

Upvoted specifically for:

Students shouldn't confuse being educated with having a high mark on a test.

It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, attributed to Mark Twain, but a bit of googling suggests that the attribution is questionable. To paraphrase:

Never let schooling interfere with your education.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#204

Post by shaki-dora » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:10 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #194

shaki-dora wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible to leave traces of whatever inner conflict tortures you in your writing without even knowing. For example, the disdain of the humanities in this thread (and generally on HN and the tech community) is just begging for an explanation, because the stated reasons (entirely useless, plain wrong) are neither true, nor would they seem sufficient to warrant the level of emotion. So there’s something else in the…

> It’s possible to leave traces of whatever inner conflict tortures you in your writing without even knowing. Identifying those borders on psychoanalysis. Even trained medical professionals have problems with that. > the disdain of the humanities in this thread (and generally on HN and the tech community) is just begging for an explanation It's simple - humanities as most of us here were exposed to, have high propens…

That’s sort of like a parody I would write to prove my point.

You’re clearly emotional about the topic, to a degree that cannot be explained purely by doing a few interpretations in school. I don’t see, for example, this sort of venom directed at sports, even though I have heard more anecdotes about the dread of PE classes.

I could also make the same sort of claim about science and math: namely that school did little to inspire any sense of wonder and appreciation for the subject; that it tended to dwell on the rote application of some learnt rules to slightly varying problems without capturing the essence of the subject.

I have an inkling that people here might agree that some amount of rote learning was necessary for sciences to later be able to appreciate them, and that some of us may not have been ready to appreciate those subjects fully as early teens anyway. To not extend this sort of benefit of the doubt to the humanities them seems baffling. It may be explained people never going further in those fields and therefore not evolving the understanding that lets them reinterpret their early experiences. Or it’s an almost active socialization, a choice to fully identify with one group of academia and to deny the other’s validity in an in-group/out-group dynamic.

It’s also somewhat indefensible to claim “pure bullshit”—one just needs a single counterexample to show this, and others in this thread have brought up law as a rather impressive example of the power of interpretation. Personally, I’d point to Hannah Arendt, but I’m sure there are other philosophers for everyone. Heck, even Ayn Rand is squarely in the humanities. Or Carl Schmid if you like Trump, or Hobbes if you hate everyone.

Oh, and I just noticed this, Frankfurt’s On Bullshit is itself very much in the humanities’ wheelhouse.

Were the interpretations you were taught mere bullshit? I bet if you were to go back in time, or pick up a textbook, you’d find that no, they tended to be, if anything, a bit too much on-the-nose. Of course it’s not just about a white whale, but about something in the human experience that we can see far more often than any hunt for large marine mammals. But as teenagers, that sort of introspection was liable to instill a certain amount of existential dread, and quite possible ruin the easy enjoyment of what is otherwise an engaging but rather superficial adventure story on the high sees.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#205

Post by blackflame7000 » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:10 AM UTC

jtms wrote: post #139

_7fvc wrote: post #107

This article is fun to read. Incidentally, my daughter just took a test for a gifted program. She didn't study for it as recommended by our school district. She scored 95% in one subject. But the qualified cut-off rate is 98%! My eyes just rolled looking at that number. That means they only pick 98 and 99 percentiles. For a first grader to score that high, she needs to answer the exam perfectly. If you have some stat…

I was in the gifted program when I was in elementary school and I don’t recommend it. It took a kid like me who was already prone to social isolation and isolated him further. I voluntarily left the program after 2 years and was playing catch up socially and I wasn’t any better off academically. Don’t put your kids in that program.

I was also in the gifted program and the thing that helped me the most was getting involved in youth sports like little league, rec basketball, and soccer. It allowed me to be friends with both the smart kids and athletic kids. I can't stress enough how important youth sports are for kids

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#206

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #198

Funny... As I write this, the office I work with is abuzz with game of thrones talk. Does Arya fullfil the prophecy. How winter fell to the Starks. If it gets to pints after work it'll be the war of roses, white walkers as a symbol of climate change, dragons as nuclear weapons... We delve into art we like, insert meaning and extend the stories with our interpretations. Sometimes we hope, imagine or expect that the ar…

Now imagine your boss would grade you on how well you can recite a particular co-worker's GoT interpretation, and cut your paycheck if you get too many things wrong - or if you dared to say you disagree with that interpretation.

This is how humanities in school feel. Being told some arbitrary interpretation is the truth, being forced to learn it, and being tested on it.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#207

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:17 AM UTC

jtms wrote: post #139

_7fvc wrote: post #107

This article is fun to read. Incidentally, my daughter just took a test for a gifted program. She didn't study for it as recommended by our school district. She scored 95% in one subject. But the qualified cut-off rate is 98%! My eyes just rolled looking at that number. That means they only pick 98 and 99 percentiles. For a first grader to score that high, she needs to answer the exam perfectly. If you have some stat…

I was in the gifted program when I was in elementary school and I don’t recommend it. It took a kid like me who was already prone to social isolation and isolated him further. I voluntarily left the program after 2 years and was playing catch up socially and I wasn’t any better off academically. Don’t put your kids in that program.

I was in a similar situation. My elementary school recommended to my parent that I skip a grade and join the [GRADE+1] cohort, which would remove me from my (already small) group of friends. This ended up happening over my strong, for a 10 year old, objection. In the first quarter I deliberately engineered my grades to be all C’s (was previously a straight A kid) which triggered school admin to reverse the decision. I consider this my first “achievement unlocked” moment.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#208

Post by beobab » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:23 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #138

RealityVoid wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a product of industrialization! But here is what's the nagging thought on my mind. This industrialized schooling has allowed basic human knowledge to be disseminated at a faster pace than ever before. The need to do so caused it to roll back on quality, sometimes greatly. But without this tradeoff, would knowledge be able to reach so many? Is there some sort of balance point to be reached? I agree that curre…

That's an interesting point - sacrificing quality for quantity. You see it in so many fields. Like agriculture. Back in the day, every farm was 100% organic. But just try feeding today's population that way. Now you pay a premium for organic. So in some sense maybe education is no different. Just doing more with less, or rather, doing less, for more people.

Another interesting point: People graded on quantity (making pots) made better pots than those graded on quality (one masterpiece).

https://excellentjourney.net/2015/03/04/art-fear-the-ceramic...

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#209

Post by Ensorceled » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:32 AM UTC

_7fvc wrote: post #107

This article is fun to read. Incidentally, my daughter just took a test for a gifted program. She didn't study for it as recommended by our school district. She scored 95% in one subject. But the qualified cut-off rate is 98%! My eyes just rolled looking at that number. That means they only pick 98 and 99 percentiles. For a first grader to score that high, she needs to answer the exam perfectly. If you have some stat…

That's weird that she was expected to study for it, sounds like it was just testing if she was "ahead of grade level". So yeah, doing it wrong.

When my step kids were tested they were interviewed by a psychologist for a couple of hours and did various IQ and aptitude tests. The report was quite thorough.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#210

Post by joesb » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 9:34 AM UTC

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #44

megy wrote: post #33

I mean, so? She writes poems. Why should that mean she is good at analyzing poems? Are game players good at writing games, and vice-versa? Are people who eat a lot good at cooking? Are runners great at designing shoes?

I agree that the author doesn't get to dictate the reading of a poem (nor does the test-maker), but these questions are usually formulated to explicitly reference the intentions of the author (the "author's purpose"). Although, now that I look at a few, it looks like the common language is "The author most likely did so-and-so in order to...". But more honest language ("What does this line mean?") would erase the ven…

> But more honest language ("What does this line mean?") would erase the veneer of objectivity; hermeneutical questions do not have "right" answers

"When you say it honestly, it looks bad. So don't say it that way".

Not targeting at you, obviously you are explaining the thought process of the exam maker, but that kinda shows the issue with them.

They looked at the question and realize that there's no right answer for these kind of question to be made in to a multiple choice question. But instead of changing the test to something else, or making it a free text answer, they choose to play with wording of the question to hide the problem with it.