++ [ originally posted by mikhail
] ++
I was at a presentation by the president of Mensa last night (he was in the college here as a guest of one of the societies), so you'd imagine I'd have something to contribute. The thing is, I think that Erik mad a good deal of sense. I'll try to pick holes though.
And you did! :thumb: My word, it's no good doing this in a third language
I'll give it another shot though.
Potential what? The potential to aquire knowledge? No. It's the ability to understand something.
Evidently those two are connected. Have you ever tried remembering something you didn't understand? You'll find it's near impossible in most cases. But I agree, maybe (for clarity's sake) that should be added to the line I typed initially.
True, but the debate is likely to be held in a school or a university, so this isn't going to be a great line of arguement. People will argue that what's being debated is whether the exams they have to sit are indications of intelligence.
In my university, we nearly always have to take multiple choice exams. Such exams require solid knowledge, the rememberance of cold, hard facts. If you will.
In my opinion, such exams (and I had them in mind when I typed my post) hardly tell anything on a person's intelligence. It is merely a good indicator of how much the student has studied. Have you studied enough facts, you get a B or an A. Have you not, you get a lower mark.
If I were smart but I didn't study, then I would still fail these types of exams.
Exams don't just test knowledge (at least good ones don't
), they test your ability to reason, to calculate, to think.
Read my above comment
How does a question that tests verbal reasoning constitute a knowledge test? How does a question asking you to solve a quadratic equation test mere knowledge? You might have memorised the formula - in fact, that's assumed - but the question is designed to determine if you can apply what you've learned to a problem.
I was never any good at mathematics - I lacked the feeling. I was good at languages, communication. I believe the reason behind that is that the communicative part of my brain is more developed than my mathematical part (those aren't the proper names but still).
Due to this, I always failed my mathematics exams. I was then put in another class where another teaching method was used.
We memorised the forumula AND every step one must take to come to the answer. I didn't understand why, because we weren't taught why. I just remembered how.
The knowledge is taught, then examined. The exam is to determine the pupil's ability to understand and apply the knowledge already directly taught. We're not talking about a table quiz here Erik.
An exam designed to do that will, in fact, measure the pupil's ability to understand and apply the knowledge, I agree. It is, however, rarely the case. As I said before, multiple choice questions are a very popular way of examination on the Continent. It doesn't require the students to understand, it requires them to know.
That's what we call memory, Erik. I can train my dog to fetch the newspaper, but she can't read it.
Your comparison is one sided. The dog remembers to get you the newspaper, because it understands what you want it to do. The two are intertwined. But I'll rephrase my initial line: Intelligence is what you are capable of remembering through understanding.
Never is a nasty word. If I explain to two people the operation of a particular small program, then ask them to write a program is to do nearly the same thing as the first. They both know the same amount, but only one might solve my exam - the more intelligent one.
Ah, but that's not what IQ tests are about. IQ tests and exams require you to answer certain questions but they don't give you any information prior to that (not entirely sure how to put this).
You see, if the person who is the most intelligent one in your example was never told how the programme was written then being the most intelligent one won't help him any bit, will it?
And, as always, you are required to KNOW. Not necessarily understand. As in the mathematics example I gave you earlier.
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