[ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future

[Tomasz Rola]

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014, spike wrote:

[...]
> Here's one for you.  I haven't heard any debate on Common Core standards
> here, but I am finding the whole debate most interesting.  My son's
> principle commented that the way the questions are asked is baffling some of
> the students.  She went on to say that the first and second graders are
> catching on quickly, and are better at it than the fifth and sixth grades.
> Their parents, forget it, they don't understand, and the grandparents are
> hopeless.
> 
>  
> 
> An example is the following Common Core test question, which contains an
> error.  Can you spot the error and give the solution?  I am so brainwashed,
> I read into the question what I think they meant, never even noticing the
> grammatical error, and figured it out immediately:
> 
>  
> 
> "Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular
> snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?"
> 
> Did ya get it?   {8-]  They have a funny backhanded way of asking questions.

Ok, but do they allow for partially made snowflakes? What kind of test is 
this - if I am able to make sense from someone who is unable to comprehend 
himself and spell what's on his mind? Strange indeed. So does it mean in a 
future society, those who can make sense of garbage spellings of the 
others will elevate themselves - in such case what happens to me, who'd 
like to have a proper specification?

I really prefer differently formulated questions. Below is example from 
one programming contest I took last year. It is not meant to be hard, it 
is just for warming up and getting to know how to submit answers and other 
such stuff and the points given have no effect on final scoring 
(hopefully I translated it correctly):

"We have a natural number n, 1<=n<=500000000. Find smallest multiple of n 
which is a square of natural number."

There are also specs for program input and output (how many lines, what's 
in them), max memory allowed (if your program allocs more, it will be 
terminated and considered erroneous), plus examples: IN: 24 OUT: 144 ; IN: 
9851900 OUT: 970599336100. In previous editions there was also maximum 
cpu time allowed in seconds for giving the answer, but last time, there 
was no such constraint (yet the limit was there, just not publicly 
specified - in the past, I was sometimes able to get the algorithm right 
by looking at how much time they gave me).

To spice things up, there was additional condition - to code it in the 
smallest number of chars one can. The winner did it in 77 characters of C.

Now, that's the question. As opposed to some fucking rebus (sorry, no 
offence meant for graders reading this).

For the record, I didn't send my answer. Too long, too late. Yet I would 
rather fail this test than succeed in yours. Sorry, no offence again. This 
is just what I think. At least while failing I have stretched myself a 
bit. Of course a test for graders would better be easier than this.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **