23 Jun
2004
23 Jun
'04
10:23 a.m.
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:06:59 -0700 (PDT)
Fred Cisin <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
How many can do a *cube* root without a calculator
(or log/alog tables)?
I suspect the "bar" is far lower than suggested here.
I'd wager "long division" sets many scratching their
heads...
I know I'm perhaps a little younger than the
average
age of people on
this list, but I feel I was one of the last
generation
who was lucky
enough to do an old-style degree course. We had
access
to real (and
diverse) systems rather than things being
emulated, and
we were given a
lot of grounding theory in the way things
actually
worked, and more
importantly we weren't given an easy ride -
no such
thing as an open
book exam then, no whizzy graphical tools to do
half
the work for us
etc.
In my day, we didn't have the option of using a
calculator.
Did that help or hurt? Are the aspects that it helped or
hurt
relevant to what is being tested?
In my day, we were to supply our own scratch paper for
standardized tests,
including graph paper. We were not allowed to bring in
sliderules,
but there was no rule against making one during the test!
I'm amazed at how often the fundamentals that
we were
taught have helped
me work some problem out - and I've lost
track of how
many of the later
generations of graduates I've had to deal
with who just
can't think
properly because all they've been taught is
how to push
a mouse around a
screen.
How many current students can find a square root without
a sqrt or x^y key on a calculator? How many even know the square root of 2 and 3?
2.236+ ;-)
--don