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

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

#221

Post by btilly »

sytelus wrote: post #111
_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 doubt the value of gifted programs. All parents innately want their child to be "gifted" but they don't understand what this program really means. They basically just accelerate by full grade or two while raising the expectations for each kid to another level. This is unnecessary burden on kids with a high risk that they can lose confidence or even burn out at tender age not willing to learn anything any more. I th…

Here is a data point for you. The high school dropout rate among kids with an IQ of 130+ is approximately 20 times the high school dropout rate among the general population.

Gifted programs reduce that.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted_At-Risk for more data points.

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

#222

Post by coldtea »

btilly wrote: post #214
jtms wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data. For a counter-anecdote, my experience of gifted programs is that it was the first place where I wasn't bullied for being more interested in books than sports. This didn't help me fit in with other kids my own age, but it did wonders for my self-confidence and significantly improved my odds of having a decent life. My wife's exper…

>I am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data.

Actually it is. Data is just many individual anecdotes collected. They just need interpretation.

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

#223

Post by TeMPOraL »

shaki-dora wrote: post #204
TeMPOraL wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

PE is hard for those who're not fit and/or don't particularly like sports. But PE classes don't carry the air of intellectual superiority and don't hold the banner of truth the way humanities classes do. Also, people like me who dislike all kinds of physical sports know enough about human society to keep their mouths shut on the topic.

> 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

Observe the general disdain for maths and STEM among the general population.

> To not extend this sort of benefit of the doubt to the humanities them seems baffling.

It's not about rote learning, it's about truthiness. Getting burned by a math class leaves you with a perception that math is hard and probably useless. Getting burned by a literary analysis class leaves you with perception that the field is arbitrary and bullshit.

Note that I wasn't bad at literature classes at school. As long as I at least skimmed the work we were talking about, I could think on my feet fast enough to bullshit my way to B whenever asked. But I was acutely aware that I was bullshitting, and that so was the interpretation the teacher was reciting. This wouldn't be a problem as long as we both acknowledged we were spinning up interpretations, but became a problem once an interpretation became "the truth" (and one we'd be tested on).

As for humanities in general - and I tend to classify most psychology and social sciences under it - I thought a lot about it, and traced my own mixed feelings to them being essentially a hatred for bullshit. I enjoy the works of art, I enjoy introspection, I enjoy spinning up countless theories and interpretations - but I hate when someone takes what is an arbitrary interpretation and tries to pass it as fact about the real world.

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

#224

Post by btilly »

coldtea wrote: post #222
btilly wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data. For a counter-anecdote, my experience of gifted programs is that it was the first place where I wasn't bullied for being more interested in books than sports. This didn't help me fit in with other kids my own age, but it did wonders for my self-confidence and significantly improved my odds of having a decent life. My wife's exper…

> I am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data. Actually it is. Data is just many individual anecdotes collected. They just need interpretation.

No, it really isn't.

Having a representative sample is essential to being able to do statistics. And collecting self-reported anecdotes does not constitute a valid sampling technique. It doesn't matter how your massage your observations afterwards, GIGO still holds and what you received was statistical garbage.

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

#225

Post by rocqua »

grandmczeb wrote: post #73
skookumchuck wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tests are one of the hardest ways of doing so I've never understood how someone could master a subject and yet be unable to answer any questions about it. In my experience, people who did well on tests tended to understand the topic, and the people who didn't do well made excuses.

I’ve always had a similar feeling. In classes where I knew the subject well, I generally did well on the tests. In classes where I had gaps in my understanding, I usually did poorly. In classes where the grades were posted publicly, my general subjective judgment of how well people knew the material matched up with their scores. Not perfectly, obviously, but the correlation has been high enough that I’ve never really…

There might be a really strong correlation, but the deviations from that correlation might not be totally random. That is, there might be people who consistently test above or below their skill level. This creates some weird imbalances that are far from fair.

It would be a lot more acceptable if deviation of test scores from skill were to be totally random for every test.

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

#226

Post by azeotropic »

I was reminded of this passage from Plato's Apology of Socrates:

"I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them - thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to speak of this, but still I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. That showed me in an instant that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. And the poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise."

So my expectation is that seventh graders would outperform the poet on this exam.

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

#227

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #222
btilly wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data. For a counter-anecdote, my experience of gifted programs is that it was the first place where I wasn't bullied for being more interested in books than sports. This didn't help me fit in with other kids my own age, but it did wonders for my self-confidence and significantly improved my odds of having a decent life. My wife's exper…

> I am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data. Actually it is. Data is just many individual anecdotes collected. They just need interpretation.

[deleted]

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

#228

Post by coldtea »

btilly wrote: post #224
coldtea wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data. Actually it is. Data is just many individual anecdotes collected. They just need interpretation.

No, it really isn't. Having a representative sample is essential to being able to do statistics. And collecting self-reported anecdotes does not constitute a valid sampling technique. It doesn't matter how your massage your observations afterwards, GIGO still holds and what you received was statistical garbage.

>Having a representative sample is essential to being able to do statistics.

That's orthogonal. Whether the collection is representative or not individual data elements are still anecdotes.

(Plus, not all data is used for statistics, nor do we always have an advance knowledge of what is representative -- e.g. when researching an unknown domain).

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

#230

Post by AstralStorm »

btilly wrote: post #224
coldtea wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am sorry that your experience was so terrible, but the plural of anecdote is not data. Actually it is. Data is just many individual anecdotes collected. They just need interpretation.

No, it really isn't. Having a representative sample is essential to being able to do statistics. And collecting self-reported anecdotes does not constitute a valid sampling technique. It doesn't matter how your massage your observations afterwards, GIGO still holds and what you received was statistical garbage.

Submitted data is still data, just at worst biased. Which may or may not be important.

The question is always what bias and whether collecting much less data yourself is preferable. Your non-submission sampling tactic may be biased too. (E.g. telephone questionnaires select for people having free time on demand. Emails select for people with bad spam filters and present in mailing list. Walking to ask has other limitations such as range and again availability. Asking third parties may be biased too, just like asking first parties.)

Usually when there are lots of unique submissions the question of bias or lack of representation can be put to rest.

If e.g. there are racial biases compared to baseline population due to submissions, this can be taken into account. Likewise if there is his due to some school districts responding less or more. You will have to handle these issues anyway.

If you guess what the representative sample might be, you may be committing scientific fraud...

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