Supergrunch

Hm, well little has happened so far today. I'm still having fun trying to understand dynamic semantics. What even is chemical calculus? Rate equations and so on, or just calculations in the non-differential/integral sense? Awesome mark anyway. And greetings, Scoop.

I didn't give two annecdotal examples; I gave 9 examples, 6-7 of which were entirely non-annecdotal and the remainder of which were just highlighting several serious problems I've come across in individual exams. Yes, it's not a scientific study, but none of us are in a position to do that and it's still a hell of a lot better than simply asserting the alternative conclusion. Anyway, I agree with most of what people have to say about exams. I understand they were invented by Cambridge several hundred years ago, as a replacement for the old Tripos system which involved candidates being interviewed while sitting on a stool (there were too many undergraduates to continue this). Which isn't to say it should be conserved, but it's also incredibly difficult to find a decent method of assessment that's actually feasible.

The best comparison I've come across is that piracy is like going into a bookshop and photocopying every page of a book, then putting it back on the shelf without damaging it, whereas theft is actually stealing the book. Also, good luck downloading a car and finding it has the same numberplate. :wink:

I don't know nearly as much about primary; from what I do understand it's at the very least a good deal better than Secondary is at the moment. So you may well be right. Yes, there are a hell of a lot more graduates, largely thanks to the 50% initiative, and this a problem with the education system, rather than being one of its triumphs. Why create more graduates when you don't have jobs for them, especially when this means changing the status of various perfectly good institutions offering vocational qualifications to universities? Degrees are academic qualifications, and very much not the sort of thing 50% of the population should want to do - look at how large numbers of people don't go for the course at all. And access is of course great, but it should help and encourage people to do degrees who are ideal for university but couldn't or wouldn't otherwise go, rather than just making it easier across the board. The current system has lead to degrees being devalued, and they've become seemingly pointless in many cases. Well, there's quite a lot of evidence for grade inflation. First I'll note that grades go up every year. Either this is because exams are getting easier, or people are getting better at them. Now looking at some particular examples: GCSE: - Physics: Have a look at this paper. Note how question 3 requires no knowledge of anything; the diagram may as well have names of magical creatures and the structure of the question would remain intact. Even on the higher tier, question 26 requires no knowledge of physics and is in fact a fairly simple exercise in arithmetic. - Biology: In comparsion to past papers, my exam involved questions such as "Why is drinking bad for you?"; I was given no marks for giving an accurate description of the physiological effects of alcohol on the brain and liver. - Languages: The oral sections of these papers usually involve a list of potential questions which is given to teachers, allowing them to encourage candidates to draw up answers to each question in advance and learn them by rote, making the exam a test of memory. - English literature: I had to do a paper with an essay along the lines of "Write what Tybalt is thinking after he sees Romeo at the masked ball." That's not literary criticism, it's just a comprehension test, and a poorly imagined one at that. A-level: - The need to introduce the A* grade (as huge numbers of candidates previously got all As). - The introduction of the Cambridge Pre-U qualification as a more finely graded alternative to A-levels. - The papers are marked according to schemes, with no tolerance for deviance from the accepted answers; furthermore, the markers often have little knowledge of the subject they mark. I've seen an advert recruiting Edexcel markers which didn't seem to require any specific qualifications. Furthermore, Salters for OCR Chemistry involves spelling and grammar marks that use criteria such as "answer must consist of at least two sentences". Anyone joining these sentences with a semi-colon is penalised. On the other hand, this means that it can often be easy to excel simply by learning the past markschemes and repeating the key phrases in the exam. - Maths: level 5 and 6 modules on the OCR MEI course have recently been removed and incorporated into level 4; complex numbers are no longer a part of the single maths syllabus; the S1 paper consists largely of parroting definitions and carrying out tests without investigation of the mechanics behind them. - General Studies: This subject is a joke. Look at this AS question (number 42). What the hell? I really don't think it's people getting cleverer or schools doing better. In fact, grade inflation goes some way to covering up just how badly schools are performing.

Grade inflation, too many jobless graduates, and the failure of the comprehensive system? I can't actually think of any ways in which it's better.

When you finish writing an essay on paper and try to file > save.

Nobody said it was okay, they just said illegal downloading something wasn't stealing. The difference is that you don't deprive anyone of a physical product. Also currently (unchanged after the DEB) it's not a criminal offence, whereas stealing is.

Whoosh. etc.

Absolutely, although I'm sure there are other contenders. I've been told The Hunchback of Notre Dame is amazing yet have never seen it, what opinions do people have on it?

Regarding coming out to your family - it interests me how or whether people go about this, because if I were gay I wouldn't know what approach to take. Do you feel it's something your family ought to know, or do you just do it to avoid awkwardness? And if you choose not to tell them, do you think it limits or distorts the interaction you can have with people. Personally I think sexuality is about as important as gender - while you can have a conversation with someone without knowing whether they're male or female, knowing this influences the relationship between you, and not always in a negative way. Similarly with sexuality?

I never liked Toy Story. Up > Shorty > Finding Nemo > the others.

Ah okay, that makes more sense. Not sure what precise figures I'd advocate though.

I have been to Tokyo, love the subway system there although it takes a little while to understand at first and it's a bit crazy how some Tokyo metro trains switch to JR mid-journey if you're going out to the suburbs. I meant appreciation of of the London Underground system, and was only really talking about this country - people who aren't used to London tend to be in awe of it, whereas those used to it often find it a bit crap. All generalisations of course.

- Yay, am back in Cambridge. - Got up too late. - Had Subway for the first time in ages. - Watched more Battlestar Galactica. - Need to start work on an essay on dynamic semantics. - Must do more exam revision! - I disapprove of the point-by-point HWYD method. - Oh god, I'm doing it anyway.

In my experience, appreciation of the underground increases with distance from London.

These policies are just crazy. I don't get UKIP, they're such an odd mix of sensible and totally insane.

I accidently spoiled myself with ReZ's spoiler. Am halfway through season 3 myself, not hugely bothered about spoilers though.

Robot unicorn attack, a game of genius.

I don't see how I was cheating before, unless you want the sentences to have a valid meaning. Anyway, here's another with only two instances of -n't that makes more sense: Nope, I've never been in no impossibly objectionable thing with nobody as that would be illegal, unadvisable, and irresponsible, contradicting Mary's inarticulate advice that I shouldn't get overly worked up about my own non-existence in such a situation and so I must ask you to sever your emotional attachments and not to desist in your attempts to get her to stop being so counterproductive and come to the realisation that this anhydrous apolitical situation is only distracting her from the understanding that nothing is true, and no-one is going to attempt something nowhere as that would just be hopeless, dysfunctional, and unappealing, and also horribly antiquarian, don't you think? I make that 28, assuming you're counting allomorphs as distinct (e.g. im- and in- are the same affix but differ due to the letters around them).

I chose potato in particular because my mum will eat nothing with potato in it apart from very occasionally crisps. It's such an oddly inoffensive thing to dislike.

I don't see how this could ever be an issue so long as neither of you actively tries to convert the other. My girlfriend's vegetarian too, and it's never been a problem, despite the fact we live in the same house at term time. Would you think the same if you were going out with someone, who, say, wouldn't eat anything with potato in it? Because if you can agree to differ on ethical grounds, then this is basically the same thing. And as an aside: having to think on my toes when cooking for my girlfriend (who's also allergic to nuts) is actually really fun, it makes me better at planning meals with limited resources. The logistics of it all ends up being enjoyable, but then I do like cooking.

Oh I'm happy now:

Okay, in which case I can make pretty much as long as I want: Mary thought that John hadn't said that Peter didn't think that James shouldn't have told Susan never to misunderstand that Henry wasn't what he couldn't have been; he oughtn't have desired that which he thought should not be insoluable no matter what kind of a nobody you might be as wherever you go no-one will take the blame for being antidisestablishmentarian and nothing will come of it for it's a road to nowhere. I make that around 17, depending on what you count (nobody is the weakest in my opinion), and you can make it almost arbitrarily longer.

Well obviously, it's (democratic) politics. Meaning parties spend far more time and effort on their appearance than on their substance.