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I could be smarter than a 5th grader

Thanks to Jim i have take a test to see if I am smarter than a fifth grader.

Here's the LINK

I scored 12/13. The only question I missed was 9. Which I guess is me not getting it.

Jim also goes on a slight rant about the state of general education.

IMHO, partially the reason is the tests themselves. Multiple questions allow for students to guess at the answer. There is a difference between knowing the answer and knowing how to arrive at the answer. My experience in American High School was that knowing the theory was not that important, we were never tested on it.

When I was in school living in Russia, we were tested on the knowledge of theorems as much as knowing how to apply that knowledge. I think that is the advantage.

Granted, I am not using them in real life, but you'd be surprized how many times knowing how to get to the answer helped me out, when my peers were just staring trying to guess.

UPDATE

My brother have noticed that 12 out of 13 does not add up tp 40 questions. While it's true, I claim to have magical powers.

Usually they manifest in me forgetting to post the rest of the results.

Comments

Ilya said…
I'm clearly not as smart as a 5th grader because I know that there are 40 questions in the quiz, and yet you seem to have done with 13. ????
Yeah, well. The rest of the stuff I scored 9/9 :) I forgot to post that part :)
Jim Wright said…
Ha, I never made the connection before - you two are brothers.


Konstantin, I agree 100%

While getting the right answer is important, it's even more important to understand how the answer was derived, i.e. the theory. It's not enough to know the equation, for true understanding you need know how the equation was derived.
Yep, and can you believe my luck that he is the elder?

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