EPTI coached academic decathlon at my HS last year, and one of our guys was so bad at math he actually did worse than random guessing would have gotten him.
woooooooooooooooot.
False Modesty in Academics Annoys Me - Page 4
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
I coached academic decathlon at my HS last year, and one of our guys was so bad at math he actually did worse than random guessing would have gotten him. woooooooooooooooot. | ||
GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
On June 14 2008 07:09 Hippopotamus wrote: Wtf, "bullshit majors"? Sounds like whining. If you were good at your own major you wouldn't care how difficult the others are. Applying to law school. 3.5 GPA from engineering counts less than 3.6 GPA from political science. On June 14 2008 06:18 Xeris wrote: not true. I am a Poli Sci major - I also have a concentration in biology... and I passed every bio class I took. I had to work harder in bio classes than in Poli Sci classes, but that's just because of my lack of background / high degree of interest in the subject... but ya, your argument isn't refuting my claim. If Poli Sci majors work hard enough, they can pass bio classes. On the average. You surely must realize you are an exception. It should have been clearer that I wasn't implying every poli sci major cannot pass bio. However, the vast majority of them would do worse in biology than biology students in political science, all else being equal. | ||
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JeeJee
Canada5652 Posts
my definition of hard primarily involves long tests. there's rarely a problem that i genuinely can't solve on a test but sometimes the tests are just sooooo long. USUALLY, in a 2hr midterm, if i'm reasonably confident/well prepared, i'd finish in 1hr30 and spend 30min checking over to make sure i didn't make a silly mistake/clarifying my answers, etc. this is a "standard" test-taking procedure for me (the 1:30 limit includes figuring out questions and so on) but, recently for example i had a rather hard finance midterm it was of such length where if you didn't instantaneously know the process of how to get the answer, you wouldn't finish. plain and simple. since i usually don't practice too much, on a lot of the tests i screw around with the theory i remember from class to come up with an algorithm to solve the question. but here for instance, i had no time to do that. each question had to be like "oh lol its this type of question. ezpz". a friend of mine who really likes this course, knew pretty much every question, and still finished with barely 5minute to spare (no time to check over). needless to say personally i had to bullshit on 2 of the questions to fit within the time limit -_-; to me i consider that a fairly hard test. not in terms of material, but in terms of the time constraint. as for the "joke majors". well someone from uwloo will probably get this: i'm both a mathie and artsy and i consider arts courses way harder than math. both conceptually and in terms of actual questions. cheers mathies, enjoy your joke majors. | ||
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UnitarySpace
United States61 Posts
http://www.math.duke.edu/major/whyMajor.html There definetly exist bullshit majors/departments, at least at UC berkeley. "The results were clear. "The physical sciences and engineering had rigorous grading standards roughly in line with the recommendations from 1976," stated Rine, "while the humanities and social sciences in many classes had all but given up on grades below a B, and in many courses below an A-, and the biological sciences had no consistent pattern."" http://ls.berkeley.edu/new/05/grades.html edit: actually i don't mean to say bullshit majors. I think the majority of humanities majors are pretty respectable. | ||
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demonic_phate
United States442 Posts
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
Just ace everything and let the weaklings argue amonst themselves. Remember you yourself needs to be at the top, then everything matters little. | ||
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
On June 14 2008 09:26 UnitarySpace wrote: Statistically PoliSci majors do less than average on the LSAT. http://www.math.duke.edu/major/whyMajor.html There definetly exist bullshit majors/departments, at least at UC berkeley. "The results were clear. "The physical sciences and engineering had rigorous grading standards roughly in line with the recommendations from 1976," stated Rine, "while the humanities and social sciences in many classes had all but given up on grades below a B, and in many courses below an A-, and the biological sciences had no consistent pattern."" http://ls.berkeley.edu/new/05/grades.html edit: actually i don't mean to say bullshit majors. I think the majority of humanities majors are pretty respectable. DOwn w/ humanity majors! Math all the way! Llalalala | ||
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UnitarySpace
United States61 Posts
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
On June 14 2008 08:08 GrandInquisitor wrote: Applying to law school. 3.5 GPA from engineering counts less than 3.6 GPA from political science. On the average. You surely must realize you are an exception. It should have been clearer that I wasn't implying every poli sci major cannot pass bio. However, the vast majority of them would do worse in biology than biology students in political science, all else being equal. I don't know... I just think that testing in biology is different than testing in political science, and a lot of people who ARE poli sci majors are not comfortable with that sort of rigorous memorization that bio classes often mandate... although if they cared enough about bio to really study for it, they'd probably do well. the reason poli sci majors generally don't do well in bio classes is because mostly they take them for GE's, and don't really care enough to put in the work to get a good grade. Poli Sci classes are I guess "easier" in a sense because most of the work requires essay writing, and I know from experience (I met this girl in one of my poli sci classes who was a bio major - and her writing was HORRIBLE) that it's easier for a bio person to do well in these classes because for example, they could get a friend to help them on their essays (proof reading / editing, etc) ... while that option isn't generally available for poli sci majors taking bio classes (someone can't help you memorize facts... well, it's more difficult to help that way than it is to help someone do better on an essay). | ||
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Elvin_vn
Vietnam2038 Posts
will you hate me?  | ||
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GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
One of the following two problems is from the study guide for the final exam in a Rutgers 300-level class. The other is part of homework assigned during the second week of an introductory course. See if you can guess which is which. An urn contains n red and m blue balls. They are withdrawn one at a time until a total of r red balls have been withdrawn. Find the probability that a total of k balls are withdrawn. Which of the following statements about political thinking in adolescence is true? A. Adolescents are more likely to be Republicans B. Adolescents believe in autocratic rule C. Adolescents are not politically influenced by their living environment D. Adolescents are likely to challenge authority and ask that laws be reexamined. ... Turns out the multiple choice question is from the 300-level Adolescent Psychology final exam study guide, while the probability problem is from the homework for Introduction to Discrete Structures II, a 200-level computer science course. Most of the social sciences is literally nothing more than common sense. | ||
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Hippopotamus
1914 Posts
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KOFgokuon
United States14912 Posts
you can love it all you want, but your teachers can still find ways to convolute problems and trick you completely | ||
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5HITCOMBO
Japan2239 Posts
On June 14 2008 02:16 Xeris wrote: that could be true, I honestly don't know for sure because I've never taken any real high level of physics, but you have to think.. someone taking high level physics has probably taken a bunch of high level math, and several other physics courses before. he should have the necessary background information to be able to grasp the information learned in that course, and as long as he studies enough, should be able to succeed. and again, my definition of success =/= 100%'s or anything... but a person should be able to walk out of any test thinking "I'm pretty sure I did well on that" assuming they spent a sufficient amount of time preparing.... and also realize, the amount of preparation needed to do well on exams is different for everybody... 5 hours may be enough for someone, 20 hours may be enough for another person, it's all relative. oh and to I forgot who else... I in no way think I am a genius... I have a few friends who are geniuses and they make me look retarded in comparison. I'd say that in general, I'm probably smarter than an average person, but I am nowhere close to being a genius, I've known that for a looong time.. I wish I could understand things fully with no study time, but I realize I have to put some hours in. Dude, think for a second about what you're saying - no test can be hard, you just have to study a WHOLE LOT MORE for certain ones. Why do you have to study more for one type of test than another? If what you're saying is true, doesn't that apply to any test? LSAT, MCAT, IQ, etc.? Could it be that some tests aren't strictly about studying? | ||
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Chef
10810 Posts
I'm probably smarter than an average person Is replacing false modesty with outright bragging really that much better? You're so full of it lol. | ||
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ShaLLoW[baY]
Canada12499 Posts
Here's an example: Person A goes to take a test and before the test he says "man I didn't study AT ALL for this test." Then afterwards he says "omg that test was so hard." Then the grade comes in and he's got an A "WHAT! wow that's so crazy, I didn't even study." I agree so much with this point, you have no idea how much rage I feel when people pull this bullshit out of their asses. | ||
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Pyrrhuloxia
United States6700 Posts
On June 15 2008 07:36 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote: I agree so much with this point, you have no idea how much rage I feel when people pull this bullshit out of their asses. I do this all the time  why do you hate me its just true. Oops sorry about the bump. I was searching for a picture of  Modesty and ended up here and didn't see a warning . | ||
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Sufficiency
Canada23833 Posts
I do what you described. At the site of a test, when my friends ask me I always say I didn't study, and afterwards I tell people it's really hard. After I get my result back I hide it from everyone else. False modesty is one thing. But there is another thing called jealousy. Being a show-off of academic power is even worse; you will get hated for it (this is exacerbated by the fact that most universities curve grades - so if you do really good, the prof is less likely to curve). It's much better and safer to pretend you are an idiot. I remember one time in genetics, I got perfect on the midterm. I was the only one who managed this feast. I only told one girl about it because we were pretty close. Afterwards, however, apparently she had a conversation with another guy (neither of us knew him really well) and told him that I got perfect. She told me that he gave a really bad remark about me in front of her. So yeah... | ||
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Divinek
Canada4045 Posts
On December 12 2010 11:36 Pyrrhuloxia wrote: I do this all the time why do you hate me its just true. Oops sorry about the bump. I was searching for a picture of Modesty and ended up here and didn't see a warning .HI PYRR, well i think as with any test doing well is a function of how well you know the material. If you learn it as the class goes on you really shouldn't have to study... but for some people maybe learning requires constant reinforcement and lol@ all the major elitism and terrible examples. People often confuse hard work with LOTS of work. At least in my experience, I mean I've taken classes from all years of the social sciences and math and they both required about the same amount of effort for me to do well or poor. But i think social sciences get a bad rep cause so many retarded people take them cause they're more applicable to life, so it's easier for retarded people to relate to concepts that they might have already learned just by being alive. But for the point of the topic, yes i hate false modesty. Shit is annoying when you know they're full of it | ||
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Pax
United States175 Posts
On June 13 2008 16:03 Jibba wrote: None of them are really easy. Philosophy won't give you much of a work load, but your head is definitely going to hurt. Agreed. Philosophy is not a bullshit major. It requires remarkable mental clarity and rigor of thought to do well (in a decent school, at any rate). For those to whom such things come naturally, it can be a real breeze, but if you lack the cognitive discipline, you will have notable difficulty. Plus, a philosophy major, with the right supplemental courses, can excel in almost any field because of this increased ability to just think clearly. As for the OT- Those people annoyed the hell out of me. I was also thoroughly frustrated by people who took challenging classes and got A's just because they worked hard and not due to any natural ability for the subjects. Of course, I'm not one to talk, as I had said natural ability, but nearly failed because I am a hopeless procrastinator. >.< | ||
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