Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

huffpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 464 posts

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

#261

Post by fjsolwmv »

usgroup wrote: post #136
dragonwriter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Either one of these is wrong, or they somehow managed to craft a test where the score percentage matches the score percentile, which while possible to engineer is somewhat improbable and also contradicts the next sentence: > For a first grader to score…

If the optimisation problem is “pick a set of kids that can finish the curriculum quicker as measured by standardised tests” then any effective screening test is likely to select for “test taking prodigies” since that is the leading measure. RE percentage vs percentile: I think you may be wrong here. Take for example, uni exams. 40% is the pass mark here in old Blighty. The exams are standardised and the 40% threshol…

Gifted classrooms are funded by a budget and have a certain number of seats available. In must be a percentile selection (mixed with subjective judgments, diversity, etc)

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

#262

Post by sametmax »

matwood wrote: post #252
sametmax wrote: post #234

I always though how silly it was for teachers to pretend they got the correct answer in a text analysis of a century old author. Apparently it's even true for authors that are still alive. Some things seemed so far fetched, so random, so made up. And yet it was supposed to be _the_ right answer. When I offered another one, even knowing the official one but disagreeing, I was graded as failing. Hell, I'm pretty certai…

I appreciate the classics, but I would always get in trouble in school for asking how the teacher knew this is what the author meant. Even before I knew what a skeptic was, I was a skeptic. :) I also was not being a smart ass. Many authors have additional writings that add color to the writing being studied.

I agree. Plus the classics are too often talked about like this one homogeneous corpus.

But they span on over 2500 years, with huge objective, quality and target audience differences.

I can appreciate Seneca and at the same time don't give much credit to Kant. You could reflect deep into To kill a Mockingbird and see Flaubert as dry and over hyped. And you should be able to say that in class without being threaten with a bad grade. Even if you were hypothetically wrong, if such an absolute is possible in this field.

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

#263

Post by RHSeeger »

btilly wrote: post #218
blackflame7000 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Let me guess. You don't have a coordination problem? I do. I received about a year of therapy for the fact that my left hand quite literally doesn't know what my right hand is doing. That helped. But being clumsy still made school sports really unpleasant for me. Just because sports was right for you doesn't mean that it is right for everyone.

For any given activity X, there will be people for which X is not a reasonable thing. That doesn't mean X isn't a good thing, it just means it isn't for everyone.

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

#264

Post by code_duck »

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 would imagine it varies a lot. I went through three different programs in my midsize town growing up, with different class sizes and teachers. They varied in many ways and one way was the attitude of other children. When the program was large, like a magnet school, there weren’t social problems. When we had a class of 12 kids in a school of 300 we were ostracized.

I stood out so much in normal classrooms that it was difficult to participate. I was about three years or more ahead of everyone, reading at a college level in fourth grade while some students still struggled to read compound sentences. I felt very fortunate to be put in a class with a few people my age who were at a similar level of intellectual ability.

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

#265

Post by throwawaymath »

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…

It depends on the gifted program. I was in one in high school and rather enjoyed it, though it was a pretty wide range of "gifted" (top 10% of my age cohort). I wouldn't characterize my experience as raising the the grade, but rather by diving into different material alongside different people. The material was ostensibly advanced/sophisticated sure, but it was categorically different from what would be encountered in the higher grades at the same "level."

A friend of mine was in a much more rigorous gifted program (through Stanford) and I think it was the best thing that ever happened to him. He had a very poor home life but he's phenomenally brilliant (he's one of a specific handful of people I've personally met who I use that term for). All he really enjoyed doing from the time he was 12 was reading math and physics books. Going through the gifted program put him on a path that exercised his talents in a way that he found personally very fulfilling. He ended up finishing undergrad at Harvard before the age most kids become sophomores, and then completed a PhD from Harvard before the age most people even begin one.

Then he went on to work for the NSA and, later, a hedge fund. Those things probably look soulless to a lot of people, but he's very happy.

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

#266

Post by jnbiche »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #153
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 was fortunate enough to get into a GATE extracurricular program when I was in elementary school in the East Bay, a long time ago. In my case, I got to socialize more with some peer groups, visit a planetarium, make oddball things, get a good grasp of the sciences way ahead of the regular school curriculum, and participate in a problem-solving program that influenced my thinking for the rest of my life. BUT: in retr…

> more to do with my family's obsession with being smarter than everyone else, which made me an insufferable, lazy little jerkwad.

Massive props to you for having the self-awareness to make that realization. So many people don't.

And so many smart people fail to realize that being smart is just one gift among many. And all things considered, once you reach a certain minimum, other attributes are probably more important in life success (like work ethic, and social ability). It took me until my mid-20s to make that realization.

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

#267

Post by chuckgreenman »

I grew up in Florida, a state addicted to standardized testing, and after a while you start to notice something. Standardized tests are like a meta game. I'm sure they provide a basic bench mark to see if you're literate or can do basic math but beyond that it's just pattern recognition. After a certain point you stop reading the passages, just skimming, because it's always the same types of questions and you can sort of intuit which beats of the story you need to look at to get the answer. The math sections are the same kind of thing. Match the question up to the right memorized algorithm and run it.

The tests measure your willingness and ability to become good at something with no short-term, obvious benefit, which is a clever system. However, not every high school student has 200 hours to spend getting good at bullshit.

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

#268

Post by Intermernet »

pure-awesome wrote: post #259
Intermernet wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually like to see a study on slipping on banana skins. When I was young I heard the phrase and soon after I tested it. Banana skins aren't that slippery unless the medium under it, or the shoe above it is slippery. Admittedly, this is just my experience, and probably not statistically significant

In my experience, banana peels are quite slippery, especially when they form that 'layer of slime' (when the banana becomes quite ripe) and on a smooth (though not necessarily inherently slippery) surface. Since you asked for a study, here you go (though I cannot speak for its correctness): https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29253796 https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/trol/7/3/7_147/_pdf

Wow, that is awesome! Thanks for the link. HN delivers again.

For anyone who doesn't want to download the link, the abstract states:

"We measured the frictional coefficient under banana skin on floor material. Force transducer with six degrees of freedom was set under a flat panel of linoleum. Both frictional force and vertical force were simultaneously measured during a shoe sole was pushed and rubbed by a foot motion on the panel with banana skin. Measured frictional coefficient was about 0.07. This was much lower than the value on common materials and similar one on well lubricated surfaces. By the microscopic observation, it was estimated that polysaccharide follicular gel played the dominant role in lubricating effect of banana skin after the crush and the change to homogeneous sol."

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

#269

Post by wccrawford »

sametmax wrote: post #234

I always though how silly it was for teachers to pretend they got the correct answer in a text analysis of a century old author. Apparently it's even true for authors that are still alive. Some things seemed so far fetched, so random, so made up. And yet it was supposed to be _the_ right answer. When I offered another one, even knowing the official one but disagreeing, I was graded as failing. Hell, I'm pretty certai…

I had this experience in "music appreciation" in college. I was supposed to get the same feeling from the music that the "expert" in the book did, and was wrong if I didn't.

I failed that class. I never bothered re-taking it.

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

#270

Post by wccrawford »

Ensorceled wrote: post #212
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.

It was the best thing that happened to both of my step kids. They met great people, learned amazing things, socialized with people who had common interests and talent. Best of all they stopped hating school and flourished. I only regret it wasn't around when I was young.

I was in "GIFTED" in elementary and middle school.

The elementary school one was amazing, and I would recommend it to anyone.

The middle school one was mediocre at best. I liked it, but it wasn't actually any better than regular classes.

So it can vary pretty wildly, even in the same school system.

Post reply on HN