The Official S.net "The Lame Replies Thread" Thread

[cristian989]

You people and your weird standardized testing, and GPAs and such. Here we do everything in %. Your average is all your classes for that semester averaged. Your overall final score is usually split like this: 70% of your final mark is your daily stuff, tests and such. 15% is a special project, and 15% is your final test. Of course, some classes don't have a project, and change it to 70% course work, 30% final.

Until you do the final, all the marks they send home are out of the 70%, so if you have a 50, that's 50% of the 70% final. You use that to figure out what you need to get on the final to pass. That system is kinda weird, but at least you don't have 25bllion standardized tests with all sorts of acronyms.

I think that system is more logical than the GPA/Standardized Tests here in the US.

I will give you all an example of how an SAT score is absolutely meaningless:

I got a 990 on the SAT (read: SHITTY SCORE), I had a 3.56 GPA in high school.

I graduated college with a 3.35 GPA (CumLaude, or 'honors').

I'm currently working on my own research in the university of massachusetts amherst, and odds are if this works, it will be published in a psychology journal (along side other studies that relate to the same topic, it will be a package of studies that make a point) and I might be credited as second author.

I will be applying to various social psychology Ph.D. programs this December.

So yeah, going back to that amazing score of 990, the words **the results of this test are highly correlated with one's success in college**...

I'm not bragging because I don't see it as something to brag about, it's just what I'm doing now with my life...in the end, I just wanted to give you all an example of how bullshit Standarized Tests are.

[Bobbias]

Lol, wow. I checked wikipedia and noticed that 990 is somewhere around 40%... Wow.

But yeah, some people take tests well, while others are much more assignment oriented. I happen to a be a test person myself, but almost everyone I know is much more assignment oriented, which means I would probably have a much higher SAT score than they would, but I would likely not do all that well on a number of assignments and such in college. For some reason, I absolutely HATE doing large involved projects, I much prefer learning, and then doing a couple questions to prove I know it, and wait for a test. Which is why my scores look like this: Assignments, 20% due to missing 4/5 assignments, Tests: 75-80%

[Zakamiro]

i scored 23 on the ACT and I hadn't even learned geometry yet. 

[Spectere]

i scored 23 on the ACT and I hadn't even learned geometry yet. 

Wow, same score and same situation as me.   I take it you took it as a freshman?

I scored a 29 on it when I took it later on.  If I would have waited a bit longer before I took it my second time I could have pulled over a 30.  Ah well.

[Bobbias]

Also: what the hell is up with giving scores like the ACT scores? Why use a system that is less precise than percentages? I just don't get it :/ I can see how useful having a grading system like the SAT scores, but the ACT just sounds like it's ass-backwards, using a less precise scoring system...

[Zakamiro]

Also: what the hell is up with giving scores like the ACT scores? Why use a system that is less precise than percentages? I just don't get it :/ I can see how useful having a grading system like the SAT scores, but the ACT just sounds like it's ass-backwards, using a less precise scoring system...

i think a perfect score is 36 on the ACT.. The average score is like 20.8. Basically, it's a standard test, but has some retardedly hard problems to create a curve of its own.
   
score/possible = percentage right. this would mean that the average score is 57%. Yeah. This is why.

[Bobbias]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_%28examination%29#Score_percentiles

Actually, A 21 is 56%, so 20.8 should be a 54% to 55% or so. It still makes me think that the US systems were designed by mentally handicapped people...

[MortifiedocAlot]

This is a completely valid reason to get a job.

That and I need the employment, yet they haven't called me...

[Bobbias]

All in all: Standardized testing is stupid. We only really have 1 that's worth anything, A literacy test. Essentially, this is a pass or fail thing, (no "score" is ever given) and if you fail, it means that either you take too long to do the work, and got screwed by that, or you seriously need to become better at reading. If you suck at reading and writing, you fail. Failing means that you need to retake it (it's necessary to graduate) and you can take courses to help you. It's one of those things that you need to pass, and if you don't there's a problem.

[Ulti]

Hurr, I got a 30 on the ACT, it opted me out of english 101 :V

My friend got a 35 though, I'm pretty sure he broke the test somehow.

[Spectere]

All in all: Standardized testing is stupid. We only really have 1 that's worth anything, A literacy test.

Okay, we get it.  Canada is better than the US.  Right.

Now can we stop repeating ourselves?  Thank you.

[Bobbias]

There are a number things that you guys have (like, you know, colleges with good networks, considering all our schools are too cheap to get anything better than about 100 kb/s. Oh, and you guys get cool concerts, canada fucking blows for music.) But I'm just saying that I really don't see the point in all those tests. I prefer our system since it doesn't have those tests which really don't make sense. And I'm not trying to hate on standardized testing overall, because we have a standardized test which is useful.

I AM biased, since I live here, but I just don't understand anything at all about why they have so many of those tests, if their grading scheme is totally messed up, they aren't necessarily all that accurate, etc.

We had (have?) some tests that they give kids at grade 3 and grade 6 (not sure if they are still running or not) that were introduced with the literacy test being the final one, but they were pretty much just a ploy by the teachers to make people think we're getting smarter, by making each test easier. So it's not like we don't have our share of stupid tests, I just didn't mention them because nobody around here gives a shit about them.

[K-Mann]

Infected Mushroom came here. Same with Benny Benassi, Aphex Twin, Global Deejays, the Rolling Stones...

And I live in the middle of nowhere.

Canada gets cool concerts guy.

[Bobbias]

And how close were you to those concerts? Most cool concerts are either in montreal/quebec or toronto. Neither of which I can get to, like, ever, because of the distance. The US has so many more cities that there's a much greater chance of a city close to you having a concert. If you look at the amount of cities in the US that a band does touring, VS how many in canada, canada has practically nothing, unless they're a canadian band and making a point to go through canada.




PS: Benny Benassi should not  be on that list....

[淫蟲]

Someone told me to start going to /b/.  Should I?  Or is it not worth the traumatization?