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Re: [Phys-l] 1869 MIT Entrance Exam

I don't know if this counts as a "trick" but when I went to school (which was not 1869, just in case you wonder)
this kind of gymnastics with factorization was fairly common and we were "expected" to figure it out since we constantly practiced it on homework.

Are tests supposed to be about "real-world" situations or about whatever was done in the classroom (whether it was real-world or not)?
Is this exam in line with what was taught in schools at the time?

Karim Diff


John Denker wrote:
On 10/02/2007 09:32 AM, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/

Very cute, and interesting.

My neighbor Simplicio says this goes to show how much the high schools have deteriorated over the years, and how much we need to punish the schools and teachers for doing a bad job.

=========

Kidding aside, it is remarkable how some aspects of test-making
and test-taking have /not/ changed over the years. For example,
look at algebra problem #4.
1) At first glance, this looks like a hard problem. This
is what I call the booga-booga factor, i.e. tendency of
some people to make things /look/ scary, just to see if
you flinch. If you flinch, you lose.
2) If you survive to this point, you apply the test-taking
principle that it "must" be an easy problem. Any
difficulties "must" be superficial. 3) Therefore there must be a "trick" way to solve this problem.
4) The most obvious first guess is that the numerator is a
multiple of the entire denominator. Alas this trick doesn't work.
5) There is an obvious second guess as to what the trick might
be. In fact this trick works. End of story.

>From a test MAKING point of view, I don't approve of questions
like this; it makes the test unrepresentative of real-world math
and physics problems. OTOH from a test TAKING point of view it is a useful tactic to look for trick questions. The tactic is useful because there are so many bad tests out there.

On the third hand, maybe schools /should/ train people to deal
with the booga-booga factor. I see many examples of this in
the real world; for example the President goes "booga booga"
and Congress flinches. Or workers send up a budget request
or staffing request and their boss's boss's boss turns it down
for some bogus reason. (It's a test, to see if you come right back with a counterargument; if you accept the turn-down meekly, that counts as a flinch. You flinch, you lose.)

Nobody ever taught me this principle; I had to figure it out on my own. Merely putting it on the test is not the best way to teach it.
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