Re: Conceptual Tests

[Kossom <MKossover@NEWMANSCHOOL.ORG>]

We call them "neutral grounds". Weird, no?

Sure, I might have understood it in context. Maybe I should have understood
it compared to street. All I know is that regionalisms appear on many tests
written by ETS, including the AP Physics exam. They aren't completely
regional as some people know them everywhere, but the percentage of
confusion varies by region.

I wonder why nothing from my region appears.

Similarly, people who aren't native speakers of English just know fewer
words in English and fewer meanings of those words that they do know.

People with vast cultural differences are in the same boat. I work in
admissions for my school. Foreign students do lousy on the usual sets of
standardized tests. They average something like 40 percentile points lower
than a native speaker of English in all sections -- math included. This same
group of students though has a much higher GPA than the native speakers of
English.

I spend a fair bit of time helping the non-native speakers deal with the
implied assumptions and strange wording (to them) that appear on the AP. It
helps their scores a lot.

Marc "Zeke" Kossover

-----Original Message-----
From: RAUBER, JOEL [mailto:JOEL_RAUBER@SDSTATE.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 2:48 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: Conceptual Tests


> I remember missing an SAT analogy back when I was a kid. The pair was
> MEDIAN:STREET. I had no idea what a median was, we don't call
> them medians
> here.
>
> Marc "Zeke" Kossover

What do you call the median? (Just curious) I grew up in the south and we
referred to medians of streets.  Of course, it wasn't in Louisiana!

Naturally SAT's are in part tests of vocabulary, which seems reasonable to
me in a test for readiness for University level work.