TIC (This is China)

[ZMC888]

.....because Shanghai students scored the highest on the recent standardized international exams. I can almost hear the drunken conversations at the banquets/KTVs ... yeah, the population is smart, but it isn't THAT smart! We're still the smartest.

The kids all cheat rampantly, so how can Shanghai or anywhere else in China say they have done well in exams?

[chinabiker]

.....because Shanghai students scored the highest on the recent standardized international exams. I can almost hear the drunken conversations at the banquets/KTVs ... yeah, the population is smart, but it isn't THAT smart! We're still the smartest.

The kids all cheat rampantly, so how can Shanghai or anywhere else in China say they have done well in exams?

It is probably about the results of the 2012 PISA - Program for International Student Assessment http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

Now, here are my two coins:

Chinese students are always among the top performers, obviously because their teaching and learning methods are wholly based on memorizing (unfortunately not on understanding), which has a positive effect on the PISA evaluation methods.

I remember one case when I was still in the P R of C, when one of my sub-ordinates surprised me with the following:
We had to mark a perfect 90 degree angle on a huge concrete surface. A perfect example to apply the Pythagorean theorem along with its magic numbers (3,4,5 and its multiples). I got all the stuff ready (measuring tapes, nylon lines, marking spray, ...) and started my measurements and markings. When I was done one of the Chinese engineers asked me what I was doing. I explained it and when he saw the formula, they remembered about the Pt, but could not image how I could find the way to apply it in real life.
But that wasn't all. A Chinese colleague explained that they were told at school that foreigners don't learn about the Pt - wtf ...

So memorizing is how people learn in the middle kingdom and I believe it is because of the written language - no other way than memorizing all those characters.

[Lao Jia Hou]

It is probably about the results of the 2012 PISA - Program for International Student Assessment http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

Yup, that's the one! Thanks.

The kids all cheat rampantly, so how can Shanghai or anywhere else in China say they have done well in exams?

I read somewhere that China requested that the PISA test scores for other Chinese cities not be published. Hmmmm ... Interesting.

So memorizing is how people learn in the middle kingdom and I believe it is because of the written language - no other way than memorizing all those characters.

So true, so true. And as you mentioned about getting them to apply their memories (e.g., Pt), not a chance. First time I taught Financial Math in China, the initial 10 weeks were spent going over all the various formulae. I found the classes painfully boring, but the students loved it. I'd give a quiz every second week, and I was shocked at how well they could remember all the formulae. On their final exam, I gave problem scenarios, asking students to apply the formulae I had wrongly assumed they had learned (they had to figure out which formula would be appropriate in each scenario, and apply it). More than 90% of the student failed the final exam, miserably. The remainder just barely passed, perhaps by sheer luck. They knew each individual formula, but could only apply it to the exact same scenario we used during the lectures. They couldn't make the jump from the scenario they had memorized, to a different scenario.

Btw, that first semester was in Shanghai, but it was a long time ago. Perhaps things have changed.

[998S]

Suck it up guys ....
5 min ago at the other side of the straight, living the sunday morning ride as usual.

AQI.JPG

[ZMC888]

Sunshine and breathable air! Are you sure this is China?

[Lao Jia Hou]

After a week of "blue sky days", while Shanghai was choking, things are back to normal in Beijing

Beijing aqi.jpg

0900 Sunday morning (AQI was 487 last night). I would sigh, but I can't get enough air in my lungs.

[bikerdoc]

LJH, interestingly the hundreds of blue sky days that are so frequent here in this part of the middle kingdoOm, have given way to uncharacteristic bad air pollution. Haze like I haven't seen since living in Shanghai nearly a decade ago. I thought I'd escaped that cr@p...

The numbers have been up in the 400's according to my wifes AQI app, so she and son have not been out of the house for several days. Yours truly on the other hand, have donned my RESPRO Mask with 'city' impregnated charcoal filter and kept on riding. Spent the whole day out riding Hengxi and DognQian Lake mountain ranges. Rode SiMing Shan Friday afternoon. Guess I'll have buy some more supplies of the filter elements.

I see today's AQI has improved somewhat and is now a more modest 'very unhealthy' level at 279µg/m3 in Ningbo city, meanwhile it's a more respectable 256µg/m3 here some 30km away from the city.

[998S]

I was lucky enough to have a flight out on Friday morning, seeing this incredible curtain stretched till almost Xiamen.

It really starts me wondering (again) if there is any sensible reason to stay in this country.

If you think about it, it seems they made a full turn in China.
They had these exact same problems in the eighties when everything started, and simply lost the chance to solve it in the last 30 years while they made the bucks.
Yes, things improved, but there is hardly anything sustainable, and many things are detoriating by the day.

Now, with an economic bubble growing every day, with exports dwindling, with an internal market only existing in their dreams, and with so many other problems not taken care of, I doubt it will ever be solved.

It at least makes me close to pull the trigger, and leave for good.

[Lao Jia Hou]

It really starts me wondering (again) if there is any sensible reason to stay in this country.

Chinese food? Enjoying 5,000 years of history?

It at least makes me close to pull the trigger, and leave for good.

I hear ya. My commitment is until 2014, then it is time to become a B.A.S.T.A.R.D. (Beijing And Shanghai Trans-Asian Riders' Departure) and head for Europe, and beyond.

[Barry]

Had to think of this thread when seeing this, so here you go:



http://distractify.com/fun/fails/tes...-still-genius/