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

The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

books.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 117 posts

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#81

Post by valarauko »

alex_smart wrote: post #63
ItsMonkk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am not Indian and the only thing that I know of this is what I have read here and from having watched 3 Idiots(2009), all metricization is the same. You can not test intelligence, you can only test knowledge. But everyone wants to know intelligence. The examples you cite are finding the farthest distance in their field, and the only people capable of going that distance are people who move fast AND work hard.…

>You can not test intelligence, you can only test knowledge. You absolutely can test for a combination of intelligence and knowledge. >But everyone wants to know intelligence. Seldom do people actually care about intelligence in isolation. What use is intelligence without the discipline and ability to apply yourself towards a goal for a considerable length of time? >As the people who study for a long time keep increa…

>Even with the coaching industry trying to lure parents into sending kids to them since Kindergarten, year after year it turns out that the students who do best in the JEE have only had two years of dedicated preparation. Because that is all the time that is needed for a talented student to prepare for the material that is being tested.

Do we have any figures (anecdotal or otherwise) of how many students in the top rankings have had coaching?

I am of the opinion that the JEE (and every other competitive exam: AIIMS, etc) should be much much harder, and designed with a specific eye to defeat coaching. I'd go so far as to draw an analogy with crypto algorithms designed to be ASIC - resistant.

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#82

Post by valarauko »

ItsMonkk wrote: post #75
alex_smart wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can not test intelligence, you can only test knowledge. You absolutely can test for a combination of intelligence and knowledge. >But everyone wants to know intelligence. Seldom do people actually care about intelligence in isolation. What use is intelligence without the discipline and ability to apply yourself towards a goal for a considerable length of time? >As the people who study for a long time keep increa…

I know more about the South Korean system. They grade to a curve. When the students get better, the test gets harder. Their students spend 16 hours a day studying for their university exams, and start at the age of 12. 46% of students are depressed. Suicide is the leading cause of death in both 10-19 and 20-29 population, mostly due to the stress. The goal of all students is to pass the test so that they can make it…

While I largely agree with your argument, I'm curious if you have a solution in mind that could work in the Indian context.

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#83

Post by alex_smart »

random314 wrote: post #73
alex_smart wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Only a person who did well in JEE would say this. Please forgive me for considering, in a country fraught from top to bottom with corruption and casteism, an objective system that offers an opportunity for young, talented students, irrespective of their backgrounds, to devote two years of their lives to serious study and meaningfully transform their lives "beautiful". It MUST be because of my single-digit rank. >Tel…

> irrespective of their backgrounds, to devote two years of their lives to serious study I don't know how you can make such a statement with a single digit rank. JEE offers the middle and upper middle class an opportunity to leap into the rich class. What percentage of India is middle class? How many lower middle class and poor folks can send their kids to kota to study for JEE? How much would it cost the Indian gove…

>I don't know how you can make such a statement with a single digit rank.

I don't quite follow why having a single digit rank should stop me from having an opinion on the subject.

I come from a middle class family from the poorest part of the country. I have a lower caste background (OBC), and my father was the first in my family to receive a university education. For innumerous Biharis, JEE and other competitive examinations have been the road to salvation.

I know someone who literally learnt swimming by hanging on to the tail of buffalos and went to a CS program of a top IIT.

>How many lower middle class and poor folks can send their kids to kota to study for JEE?

A lot more than you think. Kota is probably at least 30% students from UP and Bihar, the most backward states of the country.

>but let's not romanticize it as something that can cross boundaries of caste and class

It crosses boundaries of caste and class by a, being objective and b, not testing based on criteria (such as extra-curricular activities, knowledge of English) that only the upper urban class have access to.

>If so, we can also claim that capitalism doesn't care about your caste and class either!

I don't quite follow the analogy, but capitalism cares much less about caste than the feudal systems that it replaces.

>The harrassment faced by students of lower caste who get in through affirmative action is also well known.

It is also more exaggerated than real. A few bad cases should not be taken to represent the system in its entirety.

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#84

Post by alex_smart »

valarauko wrote: post #81
alex_smart wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can not test intelligence, you can only test knowledge. You absolutely can test for a combination of intelligence and knowledge. >But everyone wants to know intelligence. Seldom do people actually care about intelligence in isolation. What use is intelligence without the discipline and ability to apply yourself towards a goal for a considerable length of time? >As the people who study for a long time keep increa…

> Even with the coaching industry trying to lure parents into sending kids to them since Kindergarten, year after year it turns out that the students who do best in the JEE have only had two years of dedicated preparation. Because that is all the time that is needed for a talented student to prepare for the material that is being tested. Do we have any figures (anecdotal or otherwise) of how many students in the top…

>Do we have any figures (anecdotal or otherwise) of how many students in the top rankings have had coaching?

I would say 90%. Probably even higher. That's also because pretty much anyone who is serious about taking the exam gets some coaching. However, I know at least a few people that cracked JEE without any coaching. Even a guy who got rank 1 without coaching (Piyush Srivastava).

> I am of the opinion that the JEE (and every other competitive exam: AIIMS, etc) should be much much harder, and designed with a specific eye to defeat coaching

I am not sure how making the exam harder would defeat coaching. The value of the hard problems is that it helps you distinguish better between the very top of the top students. At least at my time there were always a number of such problems thrown in for that purpose.

I also don't quite understand what you hope to achieve here. The whole "coaching centers teach you tricks to solve problems" idea is way exaggerated. (Honest to God, I have a terrible memory and I actually derived half the formulae I needed during the exam itself.) There are many other ways in which coaching centers add value. The most important of which being that you surround yourself with and compete against other talented, motivated students.

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#85

Post by alex_smart »

technosamay20 wrote: post #74
alex_smart wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In my day it took 4 years of preparation starting age 14. Nowadays kids start at 11 or earlier. That's more due to Indian coaching companies preying on Indian's parents' extreme sense of desperation and FOMO for their children rather than any real need to start that early. I don't think any more than two years are required or recommended for preparation of the exam. The longer you stretch the preparation, the longer…

I agree with this. Most people need just 2 years during grade 11 and 12. Starting earlier might give minor edge at best but more damage to other aspects of personality and growth! In IIT, in under 1000 rank, most people who spent more than 2 years were people who were intelligent but didn't take preparation seriously during their grade 11-12 but put in effort after that. I also know people who were extremely intellig…

Haha I know somebody who cracked JEE at the age of 14. I met him and found out that he was homeschooled with zero social skills. Warms my heart to know that he is doing well in life.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Youngest-II...

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#86

Post by xNeil »

random314 wrote: post #73
alex_smart wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Only a person who did well in JEE would say this. Please forgive me for considering, in a country fraught from top to bottom with corruption and casteism, an objective system that offers an opportunity for young, talented students, irrespective of their backgrounds, to devote two years of their lives to serious study and meaningfully transform their lives "beautiful". It MUST be because of my single-digit rank. >Tel…

> irrespective of their backgrounds, to devote two years of their lives to serious study I don't know how you can make such a statement with a single digit rank. JEE offers the middle and upper middle class an opportunity to leap into the rich class. What percentage of India is middle class? How many lower middle class and poor folks can send their kids to kota to study for JEE? How much would it cost the Indian gove…

>How much would it cost the Indian government to develop detailed coaching videos by IIT professors and upload it for free to YouTube?

That's EXACTLY what they did. Look at IIT-PAL on YouTube.

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#87

Post by xNeil »

fizwhiz wrote: post #80
xNeil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm a JEE aspirant - is there any way I could contact you to have a bit of a chat? Of course, only if you're kind enough to accept - I'll understand if you don't, however :)

I hate to be that guy, but this isn't Quora my guy.

I get at what you're saying, but I figured I could give it a shot since he replied to my thread :)

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#89

Post by alex_smart »

ItsMonkk wrote: post #75
alex_smart wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can not test intelligence, you can only test knowledge. You absolutely can test for a combination of intelligence and knowledge. >But everyone wants to know intelligence. Seldom do people actually care about intelligence in isolation. What use is intelligence without the discipline and ability to apply yourself towards a goal for a considerable length of time? >As the people who study for a long time keep increa…

I know more about the South Korean system. They grade to a curve. When the students get better, the test gets harder. Their students spend 16 hours a day studying for their university exams, and start at the age of 12. 46% of students are depressed. Suicide is the leading cause of death in both 10-19 and 20-29 population, mostly due to the stress. The goal of all students is to pass the test so that they can make it…

>The goal of all students is to pass the test so that they can make it into Seoul University so that Samsung will hire them. The bottleneck is the test. Life afterwards is easy.

That sounds quite similar to the JEE tbh. Won't you say that a significant cause of the stress is the cultural expectation that all parents have that their should be able to get into Seoul University and eventually a job at Samsung?

In India there is a good reason for this mindset, because we do not have many good universities and base salaries are very low and of course there is not much of a social security net. I wonder what causes a similar mindset in a developed country like South Korea.

> Every Einstein whose passion is in Machine Learning and spends all of his time on that topic will fail this test.

Any person who does not have a basic understanding of his background and social situation is not an Einstein.

Regardless, that is a very strange example indeed. I really don't understand what kind of a person has the background and social circle that enables him to do top quality research in a highly specialized field of engineering (that also requires considerable funds to run any sort of experiments) at the age of 17 but also doesn't have the connections that will help him get into a decent university.

Re: The Textbook That Unleashed Ramanujan's Genius

#90

Post by ItsMonkk »

valarauko wrote: post #82
ItsMonkk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know more about the South Korean system. They grade to a curve. When the students get better, the test gets harder. Their students spend 16 hours a day studying for their university exams, and start at the age of 12. 46% of students are depressed. Suicide is the leading cause of death in both 10-19 and 20-29 population, mostly due to the stress. The goal of all students is to pass the test so that they can make it…

While I largely agree with your argument, I'm curious if you have a solution in mind that could work in the Indian context.

Use the start-up model whenever possible.

1. Take as many bets as you can.

2. Pay a great deal of attention to those bets. Guide them.

3. As soon as you know the bet failed, let it fail.

Entrance exams are an anti-pattern. They commit to much to early. This means they have to be correct, so they get more strict. This squeezes out exactly who they were hoping to find. Same problem with interviews. Same problem everywhere.

Post reply on HN