Subject:
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Re: Standardized tests (was: Yummy!)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 7 May 2000 23:34:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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813 times
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Larry P wrote:
> score and all it proves is that I am good at taking tests, can do math
> problems >quickly, and have a large vocabulary.
Ditto. Of course, the trouble with having exams etc come easy
(relatively), is that at some point one reaches a subject or chunk of
knowledge which requires you to WORK to understand it... andfor me at
least, I'd never learned to. Took me quite a few years to work out how
to learn *difficult* stuff (and that was something I had to learn how to
do for myself, nothing at school or uni taught me how to). Partial
differential equations were my downfall...
Chris wrote in reply...
> This last attribute is under-understood and under-emphasized in my opinion. I
> think the single most important thing that parents can do for their childrens'
> academic future is be sure that they are exposed early and often to a huge
> vocabulary. Aside from giving them lots of known words, it gets them in the
> habit of being exposed to things they don't know and asking or looking up the
> answers. That is tremendously important. I see people all the time let words,
> concepts, explanations, etc. slide in and out of their brain without
> understanding them and without questioning. Vocabulary exposure, I believe,
> also creates a broader context in which people can incorporate new ideas. You
> can think about more concepts if you have more words with which to describe
> your thoughts.
Strongly agree with this. We never used "baby talk" to Liz at home, with
the result that she talked like a real person right from the start (well
no, I exaggerate a bit...there were some quite creative garbled words to
start with <g>) to the point that people would look at her funny in the
mall! Interestingly, though she has a very large vocabulary and uses it
freely, she hates dictionaries and really resists looking up words. I,
on the other hand, always get sucked into *reading* the dictionary if I
look something up! Could be that I've been too ready to give her word
meanings myself rather than make her look them up, as I was made to.
As a side point, if you manage to keep commnication lines open with a
teenager, they will talk your ear off. Interesting stuff to listen to.
They also ask some hard questions!
> And extracurriculars are not just school-affliated activities. My only
> school-related extracurricular was chess club, but I worked, read widely,
> computed, etc., all of which were valuable to my college experience.
Not even just organised or group activities. Many colleges/scholarships
etc ask mostly for clubs and societies and other organised stuff,
perhaps forgetting that independent interests can be even more
important.
Kevin
--
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Standardized tests (was: Yummy!)
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| (...) Meee tooooo! And thank goodness, I say. For if I had been able to figure out how to use those in reaction rate and heat transfer problems I would have gotten my Chemical Engineering degree instead of flagging P-Chem and taking up computers (...) (26 years ago, 8-May-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Standardized tests (was: Yummy!)
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| I'm snipping here and there... (...) I wish the market would verify that. (...) problems (...) This last attribute is under-understood and under-emphasized in my opinion. I think the single most important thing that parents can do for their (...) (26 years ago, 7-May-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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