posted
I teach LSAT, GMAT, and MCAT Verbal test prep, and my students and I have fun coming up with questions that should be on the Great American High Shool Exit Exam.
For example:
What is a noun? How many continents are there? Who is the current Vice President of the United States? What are the primary colors? How many letters are there in the alphabet? What is seven times eight?
So what else would you put on there? These should be EASY, not hard. Just basic knowledge you'd like to think every graduating senior MUST know. Nothing tricky.
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posted
Too basic for Grade School? You're kidding me! You'd be very suprised at the number of high schoolers that wouldn't know the majority of those questions. It's ridiculous.
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What do you get for declaring "0" on your withholding form?
How many days in a leap year?
How often do we have an election for congress? What year is the next one?
During what month do elections take place?
How effective, to the nearest whole percent, is a condom at preventing conception?
If you get a 2.0 your first quarter, a 3.0 your second quarter and a 4.0 your second semester, what is your GPA for that year?
What are the names of all 50 states? What is the name of one major city in each of those states?
If your credit card has a balance of $1,000 and an APR of 11.9% and you make a payment of $250.50, what (rounded to the nearest whole cent) is your next monthly payment?
Why is the sky blue?
Describe at least 3 major differences between "Medicare" and "Medicaid."
In the context of insurance, what is a deductible?
...
Anyone who cannot answer every single one of those questions should not be allowed to graduate from high school until they can.
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quote:Originally posted by Hamson: Too basic for Grade School? You're kidding me! You'd be very suprised at the number of high schoolers that wouldn't know the majority of those questions. It's ridiculous.
But Hamson, that is part of the problem of what makes a high school diploma a waste. That a majority of those simple questions can not be answered by someone crossing the stage to get a diploma!
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posted
Y'know, in high school I would have known the answers to eros' questions. Now I only know a few, cause I haven't needed to use any of that knowledge since being taught it.
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quote:Originally posted by MyrddinFyre: Y'know, in high school I would have known the answers to eros' questions. Now I only know a few, cause I haven't needed to use any of that knowledge since being taught it.
Really? Interesting; I tried specifically to pick questions I felt would be pertinent/vital to the average young American (whether he/she knows it or not), or demonstrate a basic understanding of a vital system.
Except for the sky blue one. That one I threw in there because everyone should be able to answer their kids when they get asked that, especially since it's a lot easier than "why do people die?"
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quote:Originally posted by Samarkand: What are the primary colors?
Please clarify this question. Do you mean red, yellow, and blue? If so, you are perpetuating a MYTH. And did you mean to refer to the primary colors of pigment or of light?
quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: During what month do elections take place?
If you get a 2.0 your first quarter, a 3.0 your second quarter and a 4.0 your second semester, what is your GPA for that year?
Primaries? Presidential elections? Be more specific.
If you attended college for two quarters and two semesters, what happened to your GPA from the first semester? Why did you transfer after less than one year? Are you aware that almost no colleges count the GPA of transfer credits?
Or did you mean that to read "third quarter" instead of "second semester"? In which case I still want to know how many credits the student took each quarter, as they may not have been the same.
Not all "simple" questions actually are . . .
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posted
I was confused in the same way, too. Plus, I use a debit card, not a credit card, and I haven't been voting age long enough to remember the number of years between congressional elections, and I'm not on medicare or medicaid...though I once learned the difference it doesn't effect my life (yet).
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posted
Tsk! Credit card interest is something you should be able to calculate regardless of whether you have ever used a credit card (it's not like most people check the math). And surely you learned how long congress-critters terms of office are? (Although I would like to know if we are discussing the Senate or the House or both.)
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posted
History: Name 6 Presidents. Put them in order of their terms in office.
Art: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatellow. Match each name to their matching artwork and their matching weapon. If you match more weapons than artwork--automatic failure.
English: Who said "To be or not to be, that is the question."
Was it A) Tom Sawyer. B)Hamlet C) The old lady on the Wendy's commercial D) The dude with the shotgun behind the bar in Grand Theft Auto--San Andreas
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posted
Yay! I feel that Dan is in the spirit of the thing. Rivka, I have not clicked on you link yet, but I will happily withdraw the primary colors question if there is any ambiguity about it.
These questions should be ridiculously basic - the bare minimun someone wandering about with a high school diploma should know. And I totally agree that the questions seem too easy and that there are many other things I would like high school graduates to know. But - just the easy basic stuff.
All of my questions in the first post are things real-live COLLEGE graduates didn't know. So yeah. Scary.
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I taught HS for 10 years, and now I deal with college students on a daily basis. I am all-too-aware that ridiculously many do not know basic, basic things.
However, you do run the risk of oversimplifying so much that a "standard" answer will not be true. Hardly helping the problem, neh?
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quote:Primaries? Presidential elections? Be more specific.
Context clues demand you look at the previous question and guess.
quote:If you attended college for two quarters and two semesters, what happened to your GPA from the first semester? Why did you transfer after less than one year? Are you aware that almost no colleges count the GPA of transfer credits?
Or did you mean that to read "third quarter" instead of "second semester"? In which case I still want to know how many credits the student took each quarter, as they may not have been the same.
It's a High School exit exam, not a college entrance exam.
quote:I taught HS for 10 years, and now I deal with college students on a daily basis. I am all-too-aware that ridiculously many do not know basic, basic things.
Given that you've taught HS for 10 years, you should be well aware that standardized tests are NEVER as specific as you'd like, and the only way to answer many of the questions is to use context clues or make your best guess. For example: in attempting to decide on which body of Congress is referred to in my question, your multiple choice answers will either make it clear or your written answer can accomodate for both possibilities.
quote:Myr wrote: I was confused in the same way, too. Plus, I use a debit card, not a credit card,
A lack of understanding about how credit works is what credit card companies make their money off of.
quote:and I haven't been voting age long enough to remember the number of years between congressional elections,
You shouldn't need to have been voting age for two congressional elections in order to know how often they occur.
quote:and I'm not on medicare or medicaid...though I once learned the difference it doesn't effect my life (yet).
The problem is that they DO affect your life; part of your paycheck is withheld to pay for them. If you do not understand what they are, how they work, and what your money is doing, how can you vote responsibly or intelligently on these issues?
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quote: You shouldn't need to have been voting age for two congressional elections in order to know how often they occur.
I learned all that in high school. My point in my first post was none of it really proved relevent to my life (so far) so I've just plain forgotten.
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quote:and I'm not on medicare or medicaid...though I once learned the difference it doesn't effect my life (yet).
The problem is that they DO affect your life; part of your paycheck is withheld to pay for them. If you do not understand what they are, how they work, and what your money is doing, how can you vote responsibly or intelligently on these issues?
I'm confused about why those two issues require a special question ensuring that people understand them? There are a hundred issues that influence people's votes. Why are those two deserving of special attention?
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When my brother was very young, he was given one of those basic intelligence tests that's supposed to determine whether everything inside your head is working properly. He was given associations to answer. Draw a line between an eggcup and the other related object on the paper: an egg, flowers, pencils and shoes.
My brother drew a line between eggs and flowers because in my family we keep little flowers in egg cups far more often than we eat eggs out of them.
That is what this thread reminds me of.
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quote:I learned all that in high school. My point in my first post was none of it really proved relevent to my life (so far) so I've just plain forgotten.
My point is that it IS relevant to your life; understanding the duration of your current elected officials and understanding when the next election takes place are large parts of understanding politics.
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quote:Context clues demand you look at the previous question and guess.
quote:
quote:If you attended college for two quarters and two semesters, what happened to your GPA from the first semester? Why did you transfer after less than one year? Are you aware that almost no colleges count the GPA of transfer credits?
Or did you mean that to read "third quarter" instead of "second semester"? In which case I still want to know how many credits the student took each quarter, as they may not have been the same.
It's a High School exit exam, not a college entrance exam.
Therefore? Was it a typo or what? And how many credits per quarter/semester -- even in HS, they don't have to be the same.
Trust me, I calculate HS GPAs as part of the admissions process.
quote:Given that you've taught HS for 10 years, you should be well aware that standardized tests are NEVER as specific as you'd like, and the only way to answer many of the questions is to use context clues or make your best guess.
Oh, please. That is a weakness of standardized tests, not a feature that should be encouraged!
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quote:I'm confused about why those two issues require a special question ensuring that people understand them? There are a hundred issues that influence people's votes. Why are those two deserving of special attention?
As I said before, it's a highly visible factor that a disturbingly low number of people understand. Consider: on every single paycheck you receive (assuming you are an employee, which the vast majority of people are), there is a seperate line deduction for these items. As in, the government is taking money away from you before you ever see it to pay for these things. And yet, how many people bother to understand what they are? How many people bother trying to find out?
Also, it's only one of many things I feel should be better understood (hence why I also said that those were just a few of the questions I'd like to see on the exam).
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Is this your dismissal of the idea that context clues are a vital part of functioning in every day society?
Hoo boy, do I hope not.
quote:Therefore? Was it a typo or what? And how many credits per quarter/semester -- even in HS, they don't have to be the same.
No, it was not a typo; to the best of my knowledge (HI, NY and WA), all high schools operate on a four quarter / 2 semester system, with 2 quarters making up a semester, or a trimester system. The only systems I know of where three quarters equal a school year are collegiate.
Further, I've never heard of a high school GPA being calculated on a per-credit basis. If your high school does it, you're the first I've heard of.
However, it's entirely possible your high school operates differently, and I certainly don't want to dismiss your school as unimportant because it doesn't follow MY conventions, so I revise my question:
"If you have two apples on Monday, three on Tuesday, and four on every other day of the week, how many apples did you have on average per day of that week? Round to the nearest tenth of an apple."
Edit to add:
quote:Oh, please. That is a weakness of standardized tests, not a feature that should be encouraged!
In the context of the questions asked? Errr, we'll have to agree to disagree there.
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quote: Anyone who cannot answer every single one of those questions should not be allowed to graduate from high school until they can.
I don't know the answer to all of those questions, but I think that I could find them in a timely fashion. While all of this is useful, what the hell country is this where calculating credit card debt is a building block of education.
I think that we have to be careful with what we test. Before we start throwing out test questions, shouldn't we decide on the purpose of public education?
If the aim of high school is to drill in facts, then we are wasting our time, and kids should drop out.
I believe that the aim of our public education system is to equip students for a lifetime of learning and responsible citizenship and living.
I'm fan of word problems, like the logical reasoning section of the LSAT, if we must have multiple choice.
And then quotations, not merely identifying the author and the date, but rather, exploring the sense of the statement. If we want to ensure that our graduates are thoughtful productive Americans, they don't need to be able to name all fifty states, but they should be able to write thoughtfully on the quote, " If men were angels, no government would be necessary," even if they can't recall that Madison said it. They should also be able to write a compelling essay on why it was important that George Washington resigned the presidency.
They should be able to write mightily on how Nuclear and biological weapons changed the tenor of international relations.
Man, these threads depress me, if for no other reason than they remind me how far out of the mainstream I am.
I think an education system following your suggestions would produce students who are very lucid and very, very ignorant.
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posted
The high schools I am familiar with operate EITHER on a two-semester system OR on a three-trimester (sometimes referred to as quarters) system. I have dealt with high school transcripts from about a dozen states, mostly private, but some public. I have yet to see one that showed grades from four quarters, although that may simply be a question of what gets recorded on transcripts.
Overall GPAs may or may not be calculated as part of the official transcript (I'd say slightly more than 2/3 do), but when they are, it is generally a weighted average, based on credit value of the individual classes.
Regardless, I get to recalculate the GPA using another method altogether, and only looking at core classes. (So that A+ you got in PE? Forget it! )
Anyway, I like your revised question. Except you'll have to revise it again. I was hungry . . . *munch*
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quote:Overall GPAs may or may not be calculated as part of the official transcript (I'd say slightly more than 2/3 do), but when they are, it is generally a weighted average, based on credit value of the individual classes.
Weird, because I'd say generally speaking, it's the exact opposite.
Out of curiousity, where (geographically) do you teach?
quote:Regardless, I get to recalculate the GPA using another method altogether, and only looking at core classes. (So that A+ you got in PE? Forget it! [Evil Laugh] )
See, our PE classes weren't easy to ace, but the grades did count.
Then again, I can't count how many people I know that got GPA points or partial points added for AP and Honors classes. What a crock.
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posted
I think that what Irami says has some (maybe a lot) of merit. I don't often agree with Irami but I do with this.
Yes, plain old facts and plain old knowledge are very important but there is a need to be able to respond as well, as opposed to merely memorize. It would take me half an hour to an hour, probably, to memorize the facts and skills listed here from the knowledge I already have about the world and the U.S. Is that really measuring that I am ready to take on the world? Perhaps more importantly, does my failure really measure that I can't take on the world?
Sure, it's important to know these facts and skills but that's not just what the education system should be aimed at doing. It should also be aimed at, as Irami says, enabling thought, discovery and discussion.
For this reason I think a high school exit exam like the one proposed would largely be meaningless, other than making sure that students have these skills. To me, that seems like a silly waste of paper and time.
If these facts and skills are important, they should be taught in schools along with all the other, deeper, skills that are required for the courses that students have to pass to graduate anyway. If they are not being taught, they should be included as part of the curriculum.
In Ontario, students are required to pass a literacy exam which tests the students ability to read and write at a grade ten level. If you don't pass it in grade ten, you take it again in eleven and twelve. If you can't pass it (everyone can at least by grade twelve), you don't graduate; it is an exit exam.
It does actually require the ability to comprehend ordinary language and respond in a way that more closely lines up with Irami's vision of the goal of a high school education. Even so, it is not supposed to make sure that you are ready for Real Life, only that you can read and write at a level that enables you to take on real life (and gather more information about it as you go) in a reasonable level.
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posted
I'm in California. And I don't teach any longer -- I'm in college administration now. Among other things, I assess applications for admission. Including evaluating HS GPAs.
And we don't care how the HS calculated GPA. We do it our own way. No bonus for AP or honors, if that makes you any happier. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:I think an education system following your suggestions would produce students who are very lucid and very, very ignorant.
And I think that your suggestions would produce students who would be full of facts and morally boring.
At the opening of Johns Hopkins University, Thomas Huxley said this:
quote:I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?
I say that I am not the slightest degree impressed by anyone who can list all of the countries in Europe or Africa or can put together a spreadsheet showing the amortization of a mortgage, for none of that information is tantamount to character, the question remains, "What are going to do with all of those facts?"
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quote:And I think that your suggestions would produce students who would be full of facts and morally boring.
I think we disagree on the purpose of education; I don't think it's education's place to educate the morals, or to try and teach students critical thinking processes that are ultimately obtained and reinforced outside of the classroom. I also don't think not teaching these things will prevent the average person from learning them outside of the classroom.
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quote:Further, I've never heard of a high school GPA being calculated on a per-credit basis. If your high school does it, you're the first I've heard of.
*raises hand*
My high school does this. It'd be virtually impossible not to - students don't always have the same number of classes from semester to semester. For example, I have 3 credits in this semester and 8 in the next (out of a possible 8/semester). Granted, this is fairly irregular (I had to shift classes around in order to make sure I had a time slot open to take Vector Calc I from the university), but it would be silly to say that my grades in this semester would have much more of an effect per class on my GPA than in next semester.
I'm in Oregon, if that helps.
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quote:And I think that your suggestions would produce students who would be full of facts and morally boring.
I think we disagree on the purpose of education; I don't think it's education's place to educate the morals, or to try and teach students critical thinking processes that are ultimately obtained and reinforced outside of the classroom. I also don't think not teaching these things will prevent the average person from learning them outside of the classroom.
I do agree with you that morals should not be taught in the classroom, I do feel that teaching critical thinking is an importatn thing to have happen in the classroom.
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posted
I also went to a highschool where the GPA was weighted by the credits.
My school was on both a block schedule and an alternating schedule. Academic classes usually met everyday and lasted a semester. Electives usually met every other day with some only lasting a semester for half credit and others lasting all year for a full credit.
It would be stupid for a half credit class to get as much weight as a full credit class.
And while we got grades every quarter the only ones that were official (on the transcript) were semester grades.
The number of classes I had each semester was usually very different.
edit to add: I'm in Georgia.
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posted
I remember complaining to my father that most of the crap I learned in high school would never be of any use to me in the real world.
Since graduation, lo so many years ago, never once have I had to recite the Gettysburg Address, know the years Edgar Allen Poe was alive, find the area under a curve or tell anyone the net ATP gain from the Krebs Cycle.
posted
I only post in the ones I can BS well enough to seem educated. I actually have my space pony do most of the typing, because I spell bad.
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posted
"When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, It's a wonder I can think at all. I know my lack of education hasn't hurt me none, And I can read the writing on the wall."
-"Kodachrome", Paul Simon
(I know I'm breaking the three-line rule, but four lines was essential to make my point. Sorry.)
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quote:I learned all that in high school. My point in my first post was none of it really proved relevent to my life (so far) so I've just plain forgotten.
My point is that it IS relevant to your life; understanding the duration of your current elected officials and understanding when the next election takes place are large parts of understanding politics.
Ahh, well... I think *I* will determine what is relevent to my life, thanks, since I'm the one living it. You see, I haven't gotten the chance to vote yet, so I never have had to think about these things.
Also, my HS did not have quarters, and the grades were weighted by both type of class and what phase you were in (there were four phases, one being special ed, two being for serious slackers or people with less dehabilitating disabilities, three was for most students, four was honors, and AP classes were considered phase five... so me being in all phase four all four years couldn't be valedictorian because I had only taken one AP class). None-core classes were mostly considered phase three, like art, foreign languages, astronomy... but some had both three and four (I took phase four economics). We did not use a 4.0 scale for your cumulative grade, either... it was a scale out of 99 percent. I'm on the east coast. No way in heck I could figure out my GPA Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: If your credit card has a balance of $1,000 and an APR of 11.9% and you make a payment of $250.50, what (rounded to the nearest whole cent) is your next monthly payment?
You should probably send me back to HS for this question, but how can I calculate the next monthly payment without knowing either a deadline by which I need to have the debt paid off, or the minumum payment percentage (of the balance, e.g. 2%) required by my cardholder's agreement?
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posted
ok here are some real questions graduates should know.
1)T or F: Wearing shoes endorsed by Micheal Jordan will allow you to play basketball like Micheal Jordan.
2) T or F: The "Limit" on your credit card is the amount of money the bank gives you for being a cool person, hoping you will spend it to spur the economy.
3)T or F: No matter what form of birthcontrol being used there is still a chance of the girl getting pregnant whenever a boy and a girl have sex.
4)Which of the following is a statistically appropriate way to invest for the future:
A) 100 Lottery tickets per week. B) Selling Crack out of your Dorm Room C) Sticking all of your money in a low interest savings acocunt. D) All of the above E) None of the above
5) Which right is guaranteed in the US Constitution:
A) The right to a Game Station given to you by your parents. B) The right to quick and efficient health care. C) The right not to starve to death. D) The right to a minimum wage. E) The right to assemble in groups.
6) T or F Any man in a lab coat on TV suggesting we use his miracle cure must legally be a Doctor or a Scientist?
7) T or F There are thousands of rich widdows in Nigeria looking for people to help them move thier illegal money into US banks, and they are willing to pay hansomely for that service.
8) Jobs involving the removal of clothing, the payment of your money to the company, or the surrendering of credit card numbers are always worth the risk.
9) T or F Hatrack is in no way addictive. You can leave anytime you want.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: 6) T or F Any man in a lab coat on TV suggesting we use his miracle cure must legally be a Doctor or a Scientist?
Your posts have been extra with the awesome lately Dan! This one was my favorite.
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quote:MyrddinFyre posted: Ahh, well... I think *I* will determine what is relevent to my life, thanks, since I'm the one living it. You see, I haven't gotten the chance to vote yet, so I never have had to think about these things.
Unfortunately, since what you do and do not feel are important in this regard directly impact the lives of every other citizen in the country, we will continue to view it as relevant, whether you do or not.
quote:BaoQingTao: You should probably send me back to HS for this question, but how can I calculate the next monthly payment without knowing either a deadline by which I need to have the debt paid off, or the minumum payment percentage (of the balance, e.g. 2%) required by my cardholder's agreement?
I'm actually surprised no one caught this earlier (myself included), but I had originally written the question one way and, in revising it, didn't finish the changes. It should read:
"If your credit card has a balance of $1,000 and an APR of 11.9% and you make a payment of $250.50, what (rounded to the nearest whole cent) is your next statement balance?"
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Your posts have been extra with the awesome lately Dan! This one was my favorite.
