Re: Veritas

djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:JFy3vt.3Jz@xxxxxxxxxxx:

In article <4612E01D.3040304@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Sea Wasp <seawaspObvious@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
In article <euuckq$8cl$2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jon Schild <jjs@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As an example, I always do really well on IQ tests, but I
can't play chess worth crap. Any clever 10-year-old can easily
beat me. I once lost a game of postal chess by a fool's mate.
(Really!)


I scored rather well on IQ tests too,* and I never even
*learned* to play chess.

*But I had an unfair advantage. When I was a tiny tot of
about seven, my father was getting his doctorate at Stanford
via the GI Bill and we lived in Stanford Village,** which was
married students' housing. Next door to us lived a grad
student in psychology who needed to practice giving IQ tests
designed for children. My parents volunteered me. I not only
aced the damn things, I had a lot of fun doing it, and this
engendered a lifelong attitude that taking standardized tests
is fun. I haven't taken one in years, but I can still
remember going in to take the SATs, surrounded by anxious
teenaged faces, and me not quite rubbing my hands in gleeful
anticipation.

SEEEEEEESTER!!!!!

I was awakened less than an hour before the test by my mom (me
having forgotten I had it that Saturday) and ran out, took the
test (finishing each section faster than anyone else) and got
the highest score in the class.

Well, I aced the verbal; I forget what score it was but it was
enough to bedazzle Berkeley. I also finished ahead of time.

The math score was only goodish, math never having been my
thing. I did the best I could with it by going through and doing
all the ones I could do first, and then going back and puzzling
through the puzzlers till time ran out.

I did the same with the Physics 10 final a year or two later:
went through the entire test and set up all the equations, then
went back and laboriously solved all the ones I could before
time ran out. I got an A on the final and an A for the course.
It was, after all, a course in physics, not math.

I don't know what I'd do if I were trying to go to college
nowadays, where they want (I believe) two years of algebra plus
geometry and trig.

Geometry is at least worth studying for entire semesters at a time.
I had a lecture from a math professor once, in which he
demonstrated that you can learn all the trig you'll ever need in
real life in an hour, using the unit circle.

He was absolutely correct. Everything else you'll ever need to
know, you'll learn in another class, as it is all application of
the principles of the unit circle.

--
"What is the first law?"
"To Protect."
"And the second?"
"Ourselves."

Terry Austin
.