If it were an open-ended or psychological test, questions like this would be great to teach kids how to reason/figure out if they're sociopaths (Let me tell you about my Mother).

Multiple choice questions need definite answers. And not be written by jackasses that think they're the wittiest ever.

The real story here is that they pay someone $32 million to write a test. They should have called me, I would have done it for $1 million and a case of beer.

Jeremysbrain: The real story here is that they pay someone $32 million to write a test. They should have called me, I would have done it for $1 million and a case of beer.

750000 and a six pack!

Except the "Which animal spoke the wisest words?", which you could argue for both the owl or the hare, the question didn't seem that bad to me. A little silly but it wasn't too confusing.

Jeremysbrain: The real story here is that they pay someone $32 million to write a test. They should have called me, I would have done it for $1 million and a case of beer.

That's not how government works.

I'll do it for $40 million.

"There wasn't any outrage or confusion until it hit New York, where people are smarter."

I can't tell if he meant that sincerely or not, but I'm sure that's not what that means.

I weep when I see this in journalism now:

FTFA: Critics have said that the pineapple question - which is the subject of a sarcastic Facebook page with nearly 11,500 "likes" - is proof the new exams are flawed.

Yes. Children clicking a button and giving a page creator and advertisers access to their info and their friend's info is a measuring stick.

FTA...

"The new exams are used in decisions to promote students..."

Absolute bullshiat. I'm a NYS educator, and these tests mean nothing, absolutely nothing when it comes to promotion. We're not even supposed to use them as a grade, not that we'd necessarily want to.

The only thing that might happen is that if a kid scores poorly enough, they may be put into "Academic Intervention Services." It's supposed to be an extra help class, but the language is worded so ambiguously that schools can get away with calling just about anything AIS.

No, these tests exist for only 3 reasons...

1. To make Pearson money.
2. To feather Cuomo's cap for an eventual run for the White House.
3. To evaluate teachers and principals. Oh, and did you know teachers are rated on a bell curve? Yup, no matter how good the kids do, 10 percent of the teachers will automatically be labeled as ineffective, and another 40% automatically as "developing." In other words, the evaluation system based around these tests will automatically count half of all teachers as failing.

This is the same state who recently changed the "cut scores" on state exams when it appeared that kids had done too well - months after the fact. So kids that had scored in the "proficient" range received letters saying, "sorry, our bad. We changed the grading rules, and now you failed. AIS for you."

Honestly, the tests were better when the state had trained a bunch of classroom teachers in test writing and then built up a pool of questions from said teachers from around the state. The tests were relevant, age appropriate, and more rigorous.

Then the state decided EVERYONE must graduate with a Regents' degree, and NCLB hit, and everything started circling the drain. And while I'm an Obama supporter, his education policies have left me less than thrilled. RttT may be even worse, long term, than NCLB was.

Excellent book those interested in the subject should read...

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Great-American-School-System/dp/046501491 7

moof: Jeremysbrain: The real story here is that they pay someone $32 million to write a test. They should have called me, I would have done it for $1 million and a case of beer.

That's not how government works.

I'll do it for $40 million.

That's not how government works.

I'll do it for $45 million and buy $5 million in office supplies from your wife's company.

Fano: Splish: "There wasn't any outrage or confusion until it hit New York, where people are smarter."

I can't tell if he meant that sincerely or not, but I'm sure that's not what that means.

Perhaps they think they're smarter, so people in "dumb" states were conditioned to accept that there are questions they can't answer, with their more brilliant overlords in the smart places told them they were dumb for not answering.

Remember that kid in college that would mock all your answers on tests, but then bellowed mightily about "unfair" questions on his test?

Anyway, removing bias from test results in stories about magical pineapples. To that I ask, what of the Spongebob watchers? They would know the pineapple would fark up.

Spongebob doesn't really live in a pineapple. So show fans would be even more screwed.

FTFA: "City schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who is ironically allergic to pineapples, couldn't stomach the question very well either."

You know what's ironic? A would-be-clever reporter demonstrating his own idiocy while making fun of others' idiocy.

Read the comments.

People are blaming black people. I kid ye not.

Smiths: I weep when I see this in journalism now:

FTFA: Critics have said that the pineapple question - which is the subject of a sarcastic Facebook page with nearly 11,500 "likes" - is proof the new exams are flawed.

Yes. Children clicking a button and giving a page creator and advertisers access to their info and their friend's info is a measuring stick.

NO. That's not what the sentence says. If you parsed it correctly, you'd get:
- 1) Critics have said that the pineapple question is proof the new exams are flawed.
- 2) Incidentally, the question is the subject of a sarcastic Facebook page with nearly 11,500 "likes."

Reading comprehension?

A question in the entrance exam for 8 year-olds to a rather good British school that I once invigilated was "What can a wooden dog do that a living dog can't?",and a page to answer.

Those sorts of questions weren't unusual, as they formed the a good basis for not only entrance, but scholarships for the very bright.

Nothing like a news article about an "infamous" question that can't be bothered to actually include the question in the article. They even up the ante by mentioning that it has a Facebook page and then not having a link to it. Hooray news!

Bungles: "What can a wooden dog do that a living dog can't?".

Who needs a page. Burn in the fireplace without stinking up the joint and resulting in a knock on the door from the cops.

Also, the answer is wrong. They ate the pineapple because they need to eat to survive and a pineapple is food.

People annoy me every day but I do not eat them, usually.

Bungles: A question in the entrance exam for 8 year-olds to a rather good British school that I once invigilated was "What can a wooden dog do that a living dog can't?",and a page to answer.

Those sorts of questions weren't unusual, as they formed the a good basis for not only entrance, but scholarships for the very bright.

I once took a poli-sci class in "isms" (comparative study of various modern forms of government). The final exam was a single essay question: "Define 'power.'"

As for the wooden dog question, I can only say that it explains a lot about the UK.

SharkTrager: Bungles: "What can a wooden dog do that a living dog can't?".

Who needs a page. Burn in the fireplace without stinking up the joint and resulting in a knock on the door from the cops.



You'd be surprised just how many 7 and 8 years olds wrote answers that were along the lines of "Not get in trouble if left it in a hot car for hours" or "Saw it in half without staining the carpet".

Smart kids are apparently preoccupied with killing and mutilating dogs,and think mentioning this in an interview situation is a good idea (which,it turns out, it was, because the best answers were only the lines of defining alive vs not alive).

A rabbit and a pineapple have a race, Leon

Better article with the actual question

Link

... The Pineapple and the Hare ...

In the olden times, animals could speak English, just like you and me. There was a lovely enchanted forest that flourished with a bunch of these magical animals. One day, a hare was relaxing by a tree. All of a sudden, he noticed a pineapple sitting near him.
The hare, being magical and all, told the pineapple, "Um, hi." The pineapple could speak English too.
"I challenge you to a race! Whoever makes it across the forest and back first wins a ninja! And a lifetime's supply of toothpaste!" The hare looked at the pineapple strangely, but agreed to the race.
The next day, the competition was coming into play. All the animals in the forest (but not the pineapples, for pineapples are immobile) arranged a finish/start line in between two trees. The coyote placed the pineapple in front of the starting line, and the hare was on his way.
Everyone on the sidelines was bustling about and chatting about the obvious prediction that the hare was going to claim the victory (and the ninja and the toothpaste). Suddenly, the crow had a revolutionary realization.
"AAAAIEEH! Friends! I have an idea to share! The pineapple has not challenged our good companion, the hare, to just a simple race! Surely the pineapple must know that he CANNOT MOVE! He obviously has a trick up his sleeve!" exclaimed the crow.
The moose spoke up.
"Pineapples don't have sleeves."
"You fool! You know what I mean! I think that the pineapple knows we're cheering for the hare, so he is planning to pull a trick on us, so we look foolish when he wins! Let's sink the pineapple's intentions, and let's cheer for the stupid fruit!" the crow passionately proclaimed. The other animals cheered, and started chanting, "FOIL THE PLAN! FOIL THE PLAN! FOIL THE PLAN!"
A few minutes later, the hare arrived. He got into place next to the pineapple, who sat there contently. The monkey blew the tree-bark whistle, and the race began! The hare took off, sprinting through the forest, and the pineapple ...
It sat there.
The animals glanced at each other blankly, and then started to realize how dumb they were. The pineapple did not have a trick up its sleeve. It wanted an honest race - but it knew it couldn't walk (let alone run)!
About a few hours later, the hare came into sight again. It flew right across the finish line, still as fast as it was when it first took off. The hare had won, but the pineapple still sat at his starting point, and had not even budged.
The animals ate the pineapple.

Here are two of the questions:
1. Why did the animals eat the pineapple?
a. they were annoyed
b. they were amused
c. they were hungry
d. they wanted to

2. Who was the wisest?
a. the hare
b. moose
c. crow
d. owl

I'm not really sure why the right wing and the corporate world insist on high stakes testing and the corporatization of the education system, except that they don't want to have to actually spend any money on training people because that makes them harder to fire, but letting big business determine education policy seems about as smart as letting them determine national defense policy.

I missed yesterday's thread....but my Weeners:

"I can't possibly know the internal motivations of imaginary animals with any more certainty than you could know what I would have liked to have had for lunch 2 days ago."

"Expression of a single sentiment in 1 particular situation is not a sufficient basis to determine the wisdom of a fictitious character"

Pineapples don't grow in forests.

John Nash: Better article with the actual question

Link

... The Pineapple and the Hare ...

In the olden times, animals could speak English, just like you and me. There was a lovely enchanted forest that flourished with a bunch of these magical animals. One day, a hare was relaxing by a tree. All of a sudden, he noticed a pineapple sitting near him.
The hare, being magical and all, told the pineapple, "Um, hi." The pineapple could speak English too.
"I challenge you to a race! Whoever makes it across the forest and back first wins a ninja! And a lifetime's supply of toothpaste!" The hare looked at the pineapple strangely, but agreed to the race.
The next day, the competition was coming into play. All the animals in the forest (but not the pineapples, for pineapples are immobile) arranged a finish/start line in between two trees. The coyote placed the pineapple in front of the starting line, and the hare was on his way.
Everyone on the sidelines was bustling about and chatting about the obvious prediction that the hare was going to claim the victory (and the ninja and the toothpaste). Suddenly, the crow had a revolutionary realization.
"AAAAIEEH! Friends! I have an idea to share! The pineapple has not challenged our good companion, the hare, to just a simple race! Surely the pineapple must know that he CANNOT MOVE! He obviously has a trick up his sleeve!" exclaimed the crow.
The moose spoke up.
"Pineapples don't have sleeves."
"You fool! You know what I mean! I think that the pineapple knows we're cheering for the hare, so he is planning to pull a trick on us, so we look foolish when he wins! Let's sink the pineapple's intentions, and let's cheer for the stupid fruit!" the crow passionately proclaimed. The other animals cheered, and started chanting, "FOIL THE PLAN! FOIL THE PLAN! FOIL THE PLAN!"
A few minutes later, the hare arrived. He got into place next to the pineapple, who sat there contently. The monkey blew the tree-bark whistle, and the race began! The hare took off, ...

In context, it's a totally normal children's reading comprehension test. If they object to that, they must object to thousands of these, in every country in the Western world. Understanding unstated emotional states is pretty bog-standard in these things.

Fano: Sasquach: I missed yesterday's thread....but my Weeners:

"I can't possibly know the internal motivations of imaginary animals with any more certainty than you could know what I would have liked to have had for lunch 2 days ago."

"Expression of a single sentiment in 1 particular situation is not a sufficient basis to determine the wisdom of a fictitious character"

Case in point: Yoda in Empire Strikes Back vs. Prequel Trilogy. "Wars not make one great," once a statement on peace and wisdom, becomes a tacit admission that he was not a war-time consigliere.



Yoda ok'd an army of slaves without a second thought. Yoda authorised the assassination of the democratically elected Chancellor because he disliked his religion. Yoda was essentially the leader of ultra-orthodox religious extremists that initiated the coup of a secular galactic government.

Yoda was a monster.

"There wasn't any outrage or confusion until it hit New York, where people are smarter."

Yeah, um... about that. As an educator, right now what I'm doing is teaching kids about inferencing. One thing that I have noticed about that is that when their brains are um... functionally rigid, ambiguous stories like this confuse the hell out of people. There are kids that can fill in the gaps in facts themselves based on what they just read and what they already know to form an answer. At the other end of the spectrum, there are kids who couldn't answer because they weren't given an explicit answer somewhere in the text. As far as the students who took this particular test, I would argue that the students that even came up with an answer are the ones that haven't had the creativity and logic skills sucked out of them by a system that values lower levels of cognitive activity (if you subscribe to Bloom's Taxonomy) over more complex ones. (Are they smarter? Possibly)

This isn't to say that this was a good question. In fact, I think that it's a horrible question. I like the story part. It's silly, and just vague enough to make kids have to think about it for a moment. However, this question should never have been structured as a multiple choice question. Those questions are mainly useful for testing the recollection and recognition of knowledge. The question is asking the student to use the information given to make a new answer. You'll want to use a short answer format at the very least to get the best results. The previous thread had many Farkers doing this, all while backing up their answers with some sort of analysis - thoughtful, flippant, or otherwise. In order to do so, you need space to write and get ideas and reasoning down so that the people doing the testing can see what the students are thinking. Otherwise all you're asking is "are they potentially thinking the same way that I do?", which is useless for questions like that.

/I still like the "The owl is the wisest because he didn't get stuck with the vegetarian meal" from the other thread.

Hmmm, sounds like a good HR question, it will be in your next interview. Along with "if you were a pencil in a blender, how would you get out?"

cig-mkr: Hmmm, sounds like a good HR question, it will be in your next interview. Along with "if you were a pencil in a blender, how would you get out?"

I've always wanted to be asked in an interview, 'what is best in life?'
giving my best arnie impression*
TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES
SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE YOU
AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THE WOMEN

This is why I am against testing - the tests are flawed.

Similarly, I am against driving, because cars are not perfect.
And I am against taking medication, because they are not free from absolutely every defect whatsoever.
And I am against drinking water, because the water here is not absolutely perfect in every way.

/etc.

do wooden dogs bark?

#1) Was this a episode of regular show? I think it was
#2) this really should not be a standardized multiple choice questiion
#3) I really don't get annoyance as an inference... because is it a rational reason to eat some one?

Anyone besides me notice that the question was written by Daniel Pinkwater? He writes children's (3-8 years) stories for a living. Just sayin'.

Okay, who forwarded them the FARK thread with our answers and explanations for the answers we chose?

I loved that thread.

flyinmonky: I'm not really sure why the right wing and the corporate world insist on high stakes testing and the corporatization of the education system, except that they don't want to have to actually spend any money on training people because that makes them harder to fire, but letting big business determine education policy seems about as smart as letting them determine national defense policy.
[rhapsodyinbooks.files.wordpress.com image 360x235]

The goal is pretty clearly to destroy public education, in order to leverage public support for taxpayer funded private education. And the purpose of that is to try to remove unwanted influences associated with public administration of education, such as offensive notions of fairness and equality, and reinfuse education with elements more pleasing to conservatives, such as religion, creationism, and so on (including, ironically enough, social Darwinism). You can see the evidence in places like Texas, where they're trying to rewrite history (even more than they've done already) to play down elements they don't like and pump up ones that they do. Or the repeated attempts to force Intelligent Design into public schooling. There's long been an assumption that if they can move kids into private schools, they're more likely to get their way on such things. They might be right.

Agarista: do wooden dogs bark?

I think they dream of chasing soapbox cars.

Sim Tree: I find the final 'answers' the most disturbing.

How the hell can Owl be wisest when he's not involved in the story in any manner whatsoever? And the animals ate the pineapple, but not because they wanted to...

The original article changed. The second version of the story said...

The animals of the forest thought it was very strange that tropical fruit should want to race a very fast animal.

"The pineapple has some trick up its sleeve," a moose said.

Pineapples don't have sleeves, an owl said.