Archive for the 'School' Category
Smart Decisions for Senior Year
Want to get through the first month of school with little to no formal writing? Avoid AP Chem and AP Euro; substitute with Physics C and AP Government. (Corollary: AP English is acceptable if you’re willing to confine your writing to 14 minute blocks.)
Want to avoid calculus teachers who can’t teach calculus? Take Physcalc.
Want to make sure you don’t keep falling asleep while reading Crime and Punishment for English? Take Fitness Walking in gym and take your book with you, and do the readings a day in advance.
Want to claim a Saturday morning to yourself? Do well enough on the SATs in the spring so that you don’t have to take them again in October. (Corollary: Don’t do the Columbia Science Honors Program unless you’re already antisocial enough that you’d have nothing to do on a Saturday morning anyway.)
Since this entry is pretty much to-the-point, here are some other points I feel compelled to include:
- The Almighty College Board has informed me that I have reached the level of “AP Scholar with Distinction”. I’m not sure what that’s worth exactly, but it sounds important.
- It seems the influx of questionable poll votes has been curbed. I’m still not sure of the cause, but I took some preemptive measures to attempt to solve the problem, and one of them worked. At some point in the future I might try to figure out how to appropriate the votes.
- My body hurts. This is probably because my shoulders don’t like supporting my backpack (which I recently updated, thank you). Yesterday I also was due for a couple shots, which while not a big deal left both of my arms sore. Interesting note: the building in which I went to get my shots is numbered 666. Notable politicians who have a campaign office located in said building? None other than Democratic candidate for Congress John Hall. (Be warned, a mysterious figure will appear on your screen if you click that link, and he makes noise.) The distinguised candidate has some dumb picture of Bush on his door saying something about John Hall giving him a headache. I think Mr. Hall is a bit too fond of himself.
- Random thought: all work weeks should be four days long.
So that’s what I’ve got to say. Now to go off and work on college stuff, or calculus problem sets, or something.
On Blogging and Writing
Slashdot posted yesterday a story about an informal study comparing the writing abilities of bloggers and high school students. Being a member of both groups, I feel particularly qualified to comment on the subject.
First: the means of comparison here was the writing portion of the new SAT, a section which I feel compelled to point out is not weighed particularly heavily (if at all) by a number of colleges compared to the critical reading and math sections of the test. And this perhaps is the most important point to consider. I hardly think that the SAT writing section is capable of telling me whether or not I’m a “good” writer, and I certainly don’t need an 800 to validate my own ability to compose sentences and make points in writing.
The SAT, like all standardized tests, judges the student (or blogger, as the case may be) on his ability to provide to the grader what the grader wants to read. Typically this takes the form of a position on some vague human ideal or absurd philisophical question, which is then supported by equally absurd “concrete examples” either from personal experience, historical examples, or readings, the last two of which typically come from what’s been studied in school that year. The SAT does not care whether you have any actual interest in the topic, or whether you have any fitting “personal examples,” or even whether your paper has any semblance of fact in it. The grader essentially takes each paper through a vague rubric that places emphasis on using concrete evidence to argue abstract ideas, creating an argument designed exclusively to please one’s audience, and preparing a piece of writing to meet these goals in a span 25 minutes.
In short, it’s no wonder that the high scoring essays from students weren’t particularly astounding, or that bloggers didn’t score particularly well. The essay on the SAT is just like any section of any standardized tests: those who perform best on the test are not necessarily those who are most qualified at the subject matter. The College Board chooses as exemplars the essays that most clearly address the points that graders have to check off on their rubrics, and those who fail to meet these points explicitly are left by the wayside.
I enjoy blogging for a simple reason, if nothing else: it gives me the opportunity to write. I can’t blog unless I actually decide that I have something to say–it just won’t happen. I write about things that interest me, and things that I have an opinion on (and yeah that’s a preposition at the end of a sentence, but I don’t care). Without a blog I’d be left with no writing experience other than a few formal papers on the changes in women’s roles in Chinese history or the effect of friction on the speed of a rolling ball, or something similarly useless. One of the most important things I felt I was able to do in my English class last year had to do with voice, and being able to actually write something informal while injecting some personality into it. I’m rather pleased, and this very blog is the one place where I have the most opportunity to practice it and take advantage of it.
Besides, I could sure as hell spend 25 minutes writing something out on my blog when I already know what I want to say, and I don’t have to worry about saying what some robot in Princeton wants to hear.
Comments (0) | Geekish, Random, School, Sophisticated Commentary
Pardon the Amotivation
Since school started a few short weeks ago it seems I’ve found difficulty encountering a free moment. Probably because senior year is a bit of a drag, and rather than screwing around all the time I’m now just devoting my time to getting work done for school. Less of a stretch compared to those used to screwing around with other people in their spare time (take that as you will) who now face the same fate, but still a bit of a chore.
So since I’ve been a bit sleep deprived in all of this, I’ve been neglecting my blog. Hopefully this is a condition that won’t last for exceedingly long, as I do enjoy being able to write a bit on what’s on my mind, which hopefully is not the fact that I haven’t been doing much of that.
Though the amotivation thing is kind of bothering me. I wrote my national merit essay Sunday night. My counselor told me it kind of sucked (using other words), so I took it back, reworked it, and handed it in on Wednesday (she wasn’t there to read it on Tuesday, else I’d have had it in then).
Maybe it’s just the amount of work I’ve had to worry about that prevents me from getting anything done. Last Spanish test I didn’t bother to study for until my free period the day of (though for the record it turns out I got the highest grade in the class on that, so maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea). The school newspaper editor application was due yesterday, but I didn’t bother to finish mine. My guess is that the whole concept of answering yes/no questions in “3-5 sentences, typed” kind of suggested that it wasn’t the job for me anyway (there were probably other things too, but I’ve got enough to worry about without trying to rewrite articles rants about how much cafeteria food sucks).
Of course, my “free time” is really supposed to be spent toward application completing and essay writing and whatnot. So I guess we’ll see what that ends up leaving me with.
By the way, I don’t know if you knew this, but Ken Jennings has a blog. I only stumbled across it (not to be confused with StumbleUpon) a few days ago, but it seems he’s slightly more regular in his posting habits. He’s probably more enjoyable to read too. And you’ll learn more from him than you will from me. And even if you don’t think he’s that great I gave you a second link to suck up some time so you won’t notice me not posting.
And one day I’ll figure out where all those damn poll votes are coming from.
Easy Fixes
In a previous rant I posted about a chronic freezing and crashing problem with my computer. I had long suspected that this was a heat issue, and that for some reason my computer couldn’t handle running around 50 degrees Centigrade, and that the only real solution would be to invest in a new, loud, potentially not-that-effective fan.
I wanted to put this off as long as possible, of course. But the issue of turning on my computer and having to hard reboot it just a couple hours later didn’t work for me, nor did it work for my buddy list and index of e-mail messages, both of which suffered from the OS suddenly crashing while they were being accessed. But first, just in case, I decided to try a somewhat less intensive solution–say, updating the BIOS for my motherboard.
Well, that was a few days ago, and I’m pleased to report that since then, I haven’t had a single sudden freeze. Either my fortune has coincidentally turned on a dime, the BIOS update did its job and solved my issue, or the new CPU driver I installed held the secret to success. In any event, I’m not questioning it, but will be pleased that I’ll be able to get my homework done without fearing for my sleep should I forget to save every 30 seconds.
Other technological issues continue to evade solution, however; I sent an e-mail to the company that made my GPS device about the fact that the device, well, doesn’t work, and after about a week and a half there’s been no response. I’ll have to look into other means of contacting them.
And I thought I had a serious partisan around here after looking at the poll results, but a check of the site logs reveals that there haven’t been nearly enough votes to account for that kind of lead. So I’ll have to look into that, too.
Uh, and by the way, school starts in less than a week. I’m kind of behind.
Back to Old Habits
The lack of updates, anyway.
So yesterday my car needed to be brought in for its regular service checkup and whatnot. My appointment was, for some reason, at 8:00 AM, but I managed to get there a few minutes after 8.
And then the waiting began. Now, a simple oil change is not a particularly time-intensive procedure. But I, the diligent individual, sat around in Honda’s waiting room (doing Spanish summer homework, no less) as other people were called to be informed that their work was finished, and new people came in to wait, and those new people were also informed that their work was finished. It became a bit confusing to say the least.
So I asked my “service advisor” or whatever he’s called what was up. He assured me they were still working on it. A second time I went to ask him about my status, attempting to show him that my vehicle was sitting outside, waiting to be picked up by myself, he assured me he would have me out in “a few minutes,” as soon as he got my paperwork.
Useless. I did, eventually, talk to the cashier and another person who had been handling several customers whose work had been completed, and eventually I was cleared to go. I was, at least, assured that the manager would be notified, and that the particular representative I had dealt with had been causing problems. Never mind the fact that it was about 11:30, my car had been ready to go before 9 (so I was told), and I still had to get to an appointment with the oral surgeon that I had made for 10:30 (even though that was an hour later than I thought it needed to be).
But, uh, at least I got some Spanish homework done.
Formulating Happiness
Via Slashdot (I’m not linking there because their summary reads nothing like the actual article): Confident students do worse in math. But the quote that really makes the story?
So glad I didn’t stick around the elementary school for Everyday Math. Mean Jeans was many times better.
Sidenote: our class’ senior superlatives are due this week. All I can say is that I wish Corey Brezak and Sheila the best in their quest for “Best Car,” and can only remind my readership that every good cause has a Facebook group. And this is a very good cause.
Comments (0) | Random, School, Sophisticated Commentary