![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkHere is an article about the dumbing down of science in the UK.
Here is a sample test that shows what teens over there are supposed to know.
I have read a lot of science fiction, including some hard stuff that has real physics in it. But I have never taken a single physics class in my life. I could ace this thing. A monkey could ace this thing. It is the stupidest test I've ever seen in my life. There is literally a question on here that a kindergartener has a good chance of getting right, (see question 3) and several questions where the real correct answer is not even present, because they've dumbed it down so much that they've taken real physics right out of it and substituted something stupid.
Take, for example, question one. NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE THE PATH A MOON TAKES if considered in relation to a sun, okay? OKAY? I want to take that and draw the correct path on there. AUGH! A real lunar orbit is this squiggly and/or looping thing, depending on how the orbit goes compared to that of the planet it's around. I don't even have to have studied to know this, it is common sense. The planet is moving around path A, and as it goes forward the moon loops around, making the moon's path go back and forth. A moon does not move in a neat circle like C unless the planet it's orbiting is stationary relative to the sun, and if you ever find a stationary planet, please tell me, I want to know how that happened.
And WHY are there two questions on here about retinal scans? What does the proper use of retinal scanning have to do with physics? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
And ten annoys the heck out of me. Jupiter is not uninhabitable because it is too cold, okay? It's uninhabitable because it's freaking HUGE, and is actually very hot, if you get down past the outer cloud layers and into the interior. And yes, duh, it's cold out at Jupiter because you're far from the sun, but couldn't the writers have found a better way to write this question than that? And what kind of idiotic physics student needs to be tested on the idea that close to the sun = hot, and far from the sun = cold? This is a second grade concept here!
Gah. Two thirds of this test are for utter morons, and the last third I can still see at least one option to every question that is obviously stupid and wrong. A good test doesn't let you eliminate answers unless you know something about the subject! But come on. Ultrasound is NOT going to be evidence of the Big Bang. Nosoundinspace! I would think that anybody who made it through elementary school knows that you don't get sound in space.
Also, why do we have to have little characters who go out and learn about astronomy? Why can this not just be a test? You do not need to say "Jas reads in a book that a galaxy has red shift. This provides evidence that:" You say "A galazy has red shift. This provides evidence that:" By high school kids should be past needing cutesy little stories to interest them in science, and if they're not, tacking on that "Jas" is studying science too is not going to help things.
Stupidity!
Oh well. I guess at least I can take comfort in knowing that America isn't the only country out there where this sort of total idiocy happens.
Here is a sample test that shows what teens over there are supposed to know.
I have read a lot of science fiction, including some hard stuff that has real physics in it. But I have never taken a single physics class in my life. I could ace this thing. A monkey could ace this thing. It is the stupidest test I've ever seen in my life. There is literally a question on here that a kindergartener has a good chance of getting right, (see question 3) and several questions where the real correct answer is not even present, because they've dumbed it down so much that they've taken real physics right out of it and substituted something stupid.
Take, for example, question one. NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE THE PATH A MOON TAKES if considered in relation to a sun, okay? OKAY? I want to take that and draw the correct path on there. AUGH! A real lunar orbit is this squiggly and/or looping thing, depending on how the orbit goes compared to that of the planet it's around. I don't even have to have studied to know this, it is common sense. The planet is moving around path A, and as it goes forward the moon loops around, making the moon's path go back and forth. A moon does not move in a neat circle like C unless the planet it's orbiting is stationary relative to the sun, and if you ever find a stationary planet, please tell me, I want to know how that happened.
And WHY are there two questions on here about retinal scans? What does the proper use of retinal scanning have to do with physics? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
And ten annoys the heck out of me. Jupiter is not uninhabitable because it is too cold, okay? It's uninhabitable because it's freaking HUGE, and is actually very hot, if you get down past the outer cloud layers and into the interior. And yes, duh, it's cold out at Jupiter because you're far from the sun, but couldn't the writers have found a better way to write this question than that? And what kind of idiotic physics student needs to be tested on the idea that close to the sun = hot, and far from the sun = cold? This is a second grade concept here!
Gah. Two thirds of this test are for utter morons, and the last third I can still see at least one option to every question that is obviously stupid and wrong. A good test doesn't let you eliminate answers unless you know something about the subject! But come on. Ultrasound is NOT going to be evidence of the Big Bang. Nosoundinspace! I would think that anybody who made it through elementary school knows that you don't get sound in space.
Also, why do we have to have little characters who go out and learn about astronomy? Why can this not just be a test? You do not need to say "Jas reads in a book that a galaxy has red shift. This provides evidence that:" You say "A galazy has red shift. This provides evidence that:" By high school kids should be past needing cutesy little stories to interest them in science, and if they're not, tacking on that "Jas" is studying science too is not going to help things.
Stupidity!
Oh well. I guess at least I can take comfort in knowing that America isn't the only country out there where this sort of total idiocy happens.