"Parse Tree" <parsetree at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JjC%8.10452$sb5.1054617 at news20.bellglobal.com...
> "John Knight" <johnknight at usa.com> wrote in message
> news:CqB%8.17733$Fq6.2119128 at news2.west.cox.net...> >
> > "Parse Tree" <parsetree at hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:Wfp%8.6912$DN4.1074154 at news20.bellglobal.com...> > >
> > > Yes. There are too many assumptions in these questions though. I can
> see
> > > why they're difficult. There was another question about probability
> which
> > > didn't even seem to specify if the two values involved were
independent
> or
> > > not.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > You "can see why they're difficult"?
> >
> > To whom are they difficult? To the 29% of American boys (after
correcting
> > for guesses), it obviously wasn't difficult.
> >
> > Maybe to the 47.7% of Norwegian boys who got it wrong it was difficult,
> but
> > you can't claim that the other half found it to be difficult, can you?
> > http://christianparty.net/timssh04.htm> >
> > It's notable that the international average for girls who got it
correct,
> > after correcting for guesses, was only 1.7%, which is lower than the 3%
> > standard error, which suggests that most women in the world probably
agree
> > that with you that "they're difficult". But is that a fact? No.
> >
> > What's truly awesome about this forum is that you've already been given
> the
> > answer, and you *still* find it "difficult". If you already know the
> answer
> > and still find it "difficult", what does it take to get you to
understand
> > it?
>> More details. The questions are ambiguous, and I could answer that stats
> question given earlier in many ways.
>>> > You've done a great job of demonstrating the thesis of this thread,
which
> is
> > that there's no way to educate the uneducable. It's like teaching a pig
> to
> > sing. It frustrates the teacher and irritates the pig.
>> It's difficult because I made certain assumptions in my answer.
>> Additionally, the tension is not ZERO in the string, it's just the closest
> to the correct answer.
>>
Again, it's your "opinion" that the questions were "ambiguous", but the
simple fact is that you can't argue they weren't as clear as a bell to those
who understood the problem, can you?
So is H04 "ambiguous", or is it just that missing 3 1/2 billion brain cells
makes it seem that way?
You were even given the correct answer, and you STILL thought it's
"ambiguous", so the answer to the question about what it takes to educate
the uneducable is: it cannot be done.
Hopefully you realize that you can't change the laws of physics by just
claiming they're "ambiguous", right?
We're not starting from scratch with this question, right? You've had
plenty of time for it to sink in, and it still seems "ambiguous" to you,
right? You can't argue that the 54% of Swedish boys who got it right did so
just by guessing, or that this was a question which they'd naturally learn
because of the Swedish environment (excluding the academic and intellectual
environment, that is), or that they'd agree with you that it was
"ambiguous", right?
It was primarily because you "made certain assumptions in [your] answer"
that you can't get it right now, which is a clue about why American girls
did so poorly on tests like this.
Here's the $64 million question: if American girls were taught the WRONG
thing in classrooms, then why were the 43% of American boys sitting right
next to them taught the RIGHT thing? And, of course, why were so many more
boys from other countries (which spend far less than us for education as a %
of GDP) taught the correct thing?
The answer is that it has nothing to do with the classroom, at all. This is
a problem that 12 year old boys work out on their own, with no help at all
from their female teachers who "think" it's just as "ambiguous" as you do.
American fathers and their children have had plenty of teachers like that,
and those "teachers" are as wrong as the day is long, aren't they?
Girls don't usually think about things like this, and when they try--they
always flub it, just as every one of the girls on this forum just did.
John Knight
