I can, have british citizenship, and am studying in allied health, close enough yeah? Shall I start packing?

Fuck testing.

(December 16, 2013 at 1:02 pm)TheBeardedDude Wrote: But the issue here is that you are training kids at the K-12 level to attain high grades and not a better education. Don't get me wrong, I understand the value of A-F as far as an evaluation of your level of knowledge, but grades seem far too artificially inflated.

Though I otherwise agree that grades don't necessary show how well you can apply your knowledge, I still think it was a major benefit to have grades. I applied to two of the best high schools in my city, so good grades were paramount, especially since the competition was fierce. I had an average of 9.2, 10 being the highest. And I don't think that grades per se is the culprit, it's aged and outdated syllabi that warp the system. That and lowering standards, of course.

(December 17, 2013 at 5:25 am)Stue Denim Wrote:

Quote: 2) If a grade was recorded incorrectly, that is a legitimate concern but often the mistake is nonexistent or is one where a grade was incorrectly entered but has no net effect on the course grade because the change was minimal.

It depends on the lecturer, the reason I do this is because I'm going for honours and need every mark I can get. Early on in a psych course (god I hate psych units) they made a very minor error in marking my essay (in APA format you don't have to repeat the year the second time you cite the same article within the same paragraph if they are within-text references, so I didn't do so, and got a cross for it). This marking error would not have affected every student, I doubt it would have affected anybody else really. Nevertheless, pointing out this error earnt me a much needed extra 4% (on an essay worth 50%, so a 2% bump to my final grade in that unit), and everybody else marked by that tutor got an extra 4% as well (I was quite popular that day). I've tried it again with other lecturers, and the response has ranged from a "yeah you're right, but it's not enough to have affected your mark" to "oh, here's an extra 1 or 2%". So yeah, I'm gunna be knocking on your door, essay in hand, blame the other lecturers and tutors who make it worth my while.

The reason I'm obsessed with my grades, as bunny was saying, is that I need to a) get into honours and b) achieve well enough in honours to get into the best uni for what I want to study for my masters and I want to get merit scholarships (I lack boobies and melanin, so no handouts for me ;P). As a high school dropout I wasn't eligible for the best uni's initially, I need to starting moving up.

I only bother attending those psych classes PURELY for the grade, I really can't stand psych.
Maybe uni's having requirements like that is an issue, making us do units we don't need or care for so that we are 'well rounded'.

I have to agree. Being petty about grades is how you stay afloat when you have crappy TAs. It may be only one or two percent for the TA, for the student it's a difference between an A and an A+ or a B and an A. The students who scoff at 1%s are also those who have given up hope for that course.

(December 17, 2013 at 5:48 am)feeling Wrote: Fuck testing.

Well, you still need some.

I'd want an MD treating me who passed his medical exams and his pre-reg over one that didn't.

In the UK, the Government can close schools which don't meet their targets for grades. This has increased the tendency for schools to bypass teaching kids how to think and instead just fills them with the facts they need to pass the tests.

The first knock-on effect is that students have greater difficulty in adapting to University where the emphasis is still on knowing how to think and apply that thinking to generating original material.

The second knock-on effect is that pupils who aren't so good at learning by rote are effectively marginalised.

(December 17, 2013 at 9:33 am)Ben Davis Wrote: In the UK, the Government can close schools which don't meet their targets for grades.

And for violence. My school was closed down temporarily because we were all feral children who used to beat the crap out of eachother and the teachers. Then they brought in a superhead and she bribed us to behave with money and celebrity visits and trips to Disneyland Paris... Then she wrote a book about it that became an ITV Drama with Mrs Weasley and the bribery part was left out so she looked like a superhero rather than just a millionaire. True story.


Anywhoo... Grades aren't important as long as you pass. A B doesn't mean less than an A* in real life. When you fill in a job application you only need to put what you passed, they never ask for your shool grades. So why waste your time?

Quote:Anywhoo... Grades aren't important as long as you pass. A B doesn't mean less than an A* in real life. When you fill in a job application you only need to put what you passed, they never ask for your shool grades. So why waste your time?

That's quite true. Recruit for attitude, train for skill.

Although the passing or failing, and indeed the grades could be argued to be an indicator of that persons ability to take on knowledge. If I have someone who has proved they can memorize the periodic table I may not employ them because I need to know the atomic number of argon, but because I need them to be able to memorize big chunks of data.

There's too much of an emphasis on standardized testing (which should probably be done away with entirely), not enough of an emphasis upon advancing a student's knowledgebase, too much parental control over the system, impacted too much by industry.

That religion enters into it at all about kills me. School also starts MUCH too early. The first 4-5 years of schooling slowly agonize over addition and subtraction (and also multiplication and division), and are primarily memorization-based. All of these things could be, and in my humble opinion should be, covered briefly around the time they are, say, ten. You know... when their brain develops to the point where it is capable of doing each of these things at a reasonable speed?

And don't even talk to me about grammar and general lingual mastery... because even starting them in at 3-6: they're shit at it. I really don't think another 4-7 years of them struggling to do basic tasks is going to do anything for them except cause a strong sense of resentment. I refuse to believe they are actually this stupid.

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@Bullying: ......

(December 18, 2013 at 4:54 am)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: That religion enters into it at all about kills me. School also starts MUCH too early. The first 4-5 years of schooling slowly agonize over addition and subtraction (and also multiplication and division), and are primarily memorization-based. All of these things could be, and in my humble opinion should be, covered briefly around the time they are, say, ten. You know... when their brain develops to the point where it is capable of doing each of these things at a reasonable speed?

And don't even talk to me about grammar and general lingual mastery... because even starting them in at 3-6: they're shit at it. I really don't think another 4-7 years of them struggling to do basic tasks is going to do anything for them except cause a strong sense of resentment. I refuse to believe they are actually this stupid.

Practice makes perfect!
That's why you get good at it some 4 years later...