Cary Kittrell wrote:
>> In article <3D37B426.1875C943 at yahoo.com> Jet <thatjetnospam at yahoo.com> writes:
> <790679 at news20.bellglobal.com> <xGYY8.6071$HR.84226 at news4.ulv.nextra.no> <5QZY8.194$Db.126322 at news20.bellglobal.com> <TQDZ8.403$sR2.8571 at news4.ulv.nextra.no> <POFZ8.8266$QY4.1371788 at news20.bellglobal.com> <2NGZ8.7472$Fq6.541138 at news2.west.cox.net> <Pine.OS
> <F.4.30.0207190809570.21521-100000 at fox.uq.net.au>
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> <X-Complaints-To: abuse at prodigy.net> <X-Trace: newssvr15.news.prodigy.com 1027060031 ST000 63.209.85.46 (Fri, 19 Jul 2002 02:27:11 EDT)
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> <Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 06:27:11 GMT
> <Xref: news.arizona.edu alt.feminism:721103 bionet.neuroscience:32794 soc.men:971650 alt.education:37927 alt.religion.wicca:443835 alt.religion:57111
> <
> <
> <
> <RLW wrote:
> <>
> <> On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, John Knight wrote:
> <>
> <> > Well, you got a zero for reading comprehension, ParseTree.
> <> >
> <> > If you had paid attention to the url at http://christianparty.net/curie.htm,> <> > then you would already know that it was a Swedish woman, Gösta
> <> > Mittag-Leffler, a professor of mathematics at Stockholm University College,
> <> > who asked Pierre to consider asking the Nobel committee to award half of his
> <> > half to his wife, a lab assistant. Gösta didn't make this request out of
> <> > any serious concern for science, integrity, honor, but only because Marie
> <> > was his wife.
> <>
> <> Mittag-Leffler was a man, not a woman. Time and time again you get your
> <> facts messed up. I cannot take you seriously because of this.
> <
> <BTW, he claimed that a negative number of people got a question on a
> <test right without guessing. A negative number! I kid you not.
>> Too true. Actually, I wrote a little analysis of just that and posted it...
> and posted it again... and it still has not shown up. I'll try
> for a third time, my apologies if the other two posts suddenly
> pop up as well. What I wrote was:
>> On any given question, all who answer can be assigned to one of three
> populations:
>> P1, who knew the answer cold
> P2, who thought they did -- incorrectly
> P3, who guessed
>> and John's method of subtracting 1/N * 100 percentage points from the
> entire group on each multiple choice question (N > 1) implicitly
> assigns the entire population to group P3, the one which guessed.
> This under-represents the contribution of group P1, who knew the
> answer, and even manages to under-represent the contribution of P2,
> the group which confidently put down the wrong answer -- and that
> explains why in John's analysis, on eight of twenty-eight items, he
> can claim that a negative number of girls got the question right.
> More girls answered incorrectly than actually took the test.
LOL, exactly. And if he were using any of those extra brain cells of his
for thought, he'd realize that if he came to an improssible conclusion,
there is something wrong with the way he came to that concluison. But
he's just too stupid.
>> With this in mind, I hereby announce the next TIMSS test, which shall
> comprise exactly three questions:
>> QUESTION 1) The current President of the United States, the man
> now sitting in the White House, is:
>> a) George W. Bush
> b) Millard Fillmore
>> comments: for all practical purposes, 100% of typical U.S.
> students will get this one right. Using John's approach, we next
> subtract 50 percentage points for guessing. The result is that
> John will now claim that only 50% of U.S. students got this
> question right. This example shows how John's method under-
> represents group P1.
:) He won't get it.
>>> QUESTION 2) Modern astronomy and phyics have shown that the Earth
> revolves around the Sun, and has discredited the more ancient
> idea that the Sun moved about the Earth.
>> a) true
> b) false
>> comments: only a handful of science nerds will get the right
> answer here (b); nearly all students will reflexively put down
> "a", which is wrong (no privileged frames of reference).
And that holds the clue to the answer to H04, but even though I point
this out, John is still to fucking stupid to get the answer right. :)
> Essentially zero percent of students will get this one right. John
> will then subtract 50 percentage points for guessing, and report
> that MINUS 50% of students answered question two correctly, just
> as he got a minus score for eight of twenty-eight questions in the
> 12th grade girls example. The illustrates how John's method manages
> to under-represent even the zero-points contribution of group P2.
:)
>> Question 3) How many species are there in the genus Crotalus?
>> a) 26
> b) 27
>> comments: except for a handful of herp fanatics, all students will
> guess on this one, giving a score of 50%. This is the only case
> in which an argument may be legitimately made for subtracting 50
> percentage points for guessing. This is group P3.
>> (the correct answer is "b" -- assuming you're willing to accept
> that _Crotalus lannomi_, based on a single roadkill in Jalisco,
> is truly a new species of rattlesnake)
>> So, we find that:
>> question correct scoring John's method
>> 1 100 50
> 2 0 - 50
> 3 0 0
>> John's claim that "zero percent of American 12th grade girls solved
> simple math problems" implicitly assumes that all girls were guessing
> on all questions, which is completely unwarranted. This explains his
> puzzlement over why scores were lower than simple guessing would
> produce -- many did not guess, but he penalized them anyhow.
He's a dolt. :)
j
>> -- cary
