Aughwhut!

[bladespark]

Here 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.

Comments

[thetommydodd.livejournal.com]

This a recent, and disturbing phenomenon. Until maybe 15yrs ago you had 2 choices if you wanted a degree, namely University or Polytechnic. University qualifications generally got a lot more respect. (The term "college" here can refer to one of 2 things, either an autonomous outfit within a University (as at Oxbridge) or an institution providing academic (usually A levels) or vocational qualifications for over 16s who've left school). However, the government decided that was nasty and snobby, and at the same time decided that lots more people should get to go to uni and have a degree (anywhere between a third and a half of the relevant age group, depending on which politico you ask). They also introduced "league tables" of exam results for schools, so their performance could be compared, and wealthier parents could buy improved opportunities for their kids by moving to the catchment area of better schools, without having to spring for private education- an unintended consequence maybe, but a real one nevertheless. Also, since politicians and administrators both wanted to be able to point to a steady year-on-year improvement in results, this has led to some bending (even corkscrewing) of the grading curves.
SO, this led to a flood of new students, all wanting degree courses and not necessarily hard ones. All polytechnics rapidly promoted themselves to university status, usually with charmingly vague names: If a poly and uni existed in the same city, you can usually tell which institute used to be a poly from it's complex and pretentious name EG Instead of Birmingham Uni and Birmingham Poly you now might have Birmingham Uni and Heartlands Uni, or the Uni of the West Midlands. This fools nobody, but still they persist.
Also, to attract the differently-intelligent, and the funding that goes with them, a host of new academia-lite courses have sprung up, in the wonderful worlds of media and cultural studies for example. To survive, science departments must compete for student numbers, so entrance requirements have gradually watered down, and the courses must now reflect that.
Good, isn't it?

AUGH!

[aazhie.livejournal.com]

that is so terrible... and i thought I was undereducated!!??

[scribe-of-stars.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. No wonder high-level courses at my college revisit things I learned in my private-school education. Granted, the courses cover things I didn't know, but I shouldn't know anything beforehand.