The Loaded Dog: HSC exams - Sun Herald (4 Viewers)

[karnbmx]

Re: The Loaded Dog: HSC exams - Sydney Morning Herald

[insert bladerunner frankenstein reference]

trolololol

 

[4025808]

On a large scale competitiveness is indeed what drives our capitalist world and makes the wheels of society go round, but I think it is very much up to the individual to discover what is truly important to him/herself and what role he wants to play in this world.

There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be part of this machine, nor is there anything wrong with wanting to climb ladders in society (and the HSC is indeed a good starting point, although I would still argue not an essential one). Regarding the initial issue of criticising societal pressure on students: I don't think the pressure is unreasonable. Society will pressure you all the time to conform...it won't stop at the HSC and this is human nature. Part of growing up is learning to face this pressure and not let it affect your decisions. Do what you think is best for you and the ones you love, fuck the expectations of society.

I agree with this statement. Nothing extra can be said about this one.

______________________________________

As for the HSC itself, yes, there is quite a lot of pressure to do well from peers, people and teachers. But in particular, I think it's pretty bad in the way the HSC focuses too much on rote-learning and memorizing instead of abstract, critical thinking and situational thinking. Sure, I know that a few subjects like MX2 require critical thinking a lot, but there are subjects such as HSC English Advanced, meant to be designed to make you critically think, but instead, people can just memorize their essays and dump them, twist, tweak and get a band 6 in them. I mean, sure, it gets you the marks, but then I think back to myself, did I really get any value from doing that??? (Although speaking of English Advanced, at the same time, noone can write an essay in 40 minutes off scratch that is capable of being a band 6 standard. So there's a problem too.) And what's worse is that most of the stuff you learn cannot be applied anymore than just the HSC itself. So in the end, we are pressured to beast our HSC exams, get 99+ ATARs, and then after that, forget everything we have learned. I know a lot of people who didn't know shit about a particular concept, they studied for the exam, did better than me in the exam, but a few weeks later, when asked about recalling the concepts learned, they forget and/or do not understand it at all.

I realized that a lot of what the teachers and tutors focus on is more on exam technique and less emphasis on understanding. Sure, examination technique can really help you score well in exams and improve accuracy, but it may not necessarily help you understand why things function the way they are. This sort of teaching in high school has made university a lot harder, since university focuses more on critical and abstract thinking as opposed to doing well with exam technique, especially when you get to 2nd and 3rd year courses. I know students who did beastly in high school and 1st year uni, but when they got to 2nd year, their marks bombed out completely because they lacked the capacity to think outside the square.

But in all, I guess most students after all care more about getting materialistic features like high marks, money and everything that is best for them. After all, there is a small minority in the world who like to see the deeper things in life and really understanding the beauty of the world behind us.

tl;dr: Imo we are pressured into working hard in the HSC, not really for the right stuff in learning, but more for materialistic gain.

 

[Memento-mori]

Re: The Loaded Dog: HSC exams - Sydney Morning Herald

Ok explain how non-competitiveness will lead you anywhere in life? We live in a capitalistic society dog-eat-dog world if you will. Only the top are the ones who survive (not literally but for the rest of the post I will refer to surviving as having a well-balanced financial and economically viable life, I will define this as what people generally aim for in the world).
And as such since we live in a capitalistic society competition is everything from business to finding a job. If an employer has to pick an employee between you and 5 other people and the 6 of you compete with each other in order to look the best and show that they are the best for the job. This is an example of millions that I can give. In order to maintain a business you need to be competitively viable, USYD only want the most hard working people to study Law and the ATAR is a measurement of that. ATAR does not measure intelligence but rather your ability to put in hard work. And as such unis will take ATAR to measure how willing you are (and smart I guess) to be able to do Law because in order to do Law you need to be pretty damn good.

Moreover your life is not determined by your ATAR but rather makes your first years of adulthood a lot easier. Sure it doesnt help to have a bad attitude about it and to point figures like that, its disgusting how arrogant people can be. But guess what? Thats how life is, you meet people of a range of different personalities from peculiar to plain arrogant. Your ideoloy is that the perfect world will have no one that will brag about their ATAR or their job or whatever.

Guess what, some people find it hard to not brag about 1 hard working year of their life and that is the simple fact about it. Sure if you point fingers and say haha you have a bad ATAR then you are being stupid but the simple fact is that there are people like that and in one way or another ATAR they will find some way to beat on you







*shrugs*
Whatever you think mate, Im simply stating my opinion there and I know many people will agree with me but they are too nice to show you the real world.




I dont think its fair that you have pointed this at me, are you sure Ive never been bullied in my life? Think Im some guy who has absolutely no problems in their life? And you bite at OTHER people for being arrogant?

I find it beautiful because it shows humans what they can achieve and it gives humans some sort of goal to beat, all in the name of advancement for humanity, all in the name of advancement of your own person financially, morally, etc etc.

The Bored of Studies caters to people with random disorders, go write a misadventure form or something if you really care about your ATAR. You read about Buddhist ideas of gratitude yet you learn nothing in the past 6 years of schooling, schooling children around the world will never see education, that will never even see proper food or clean water (yes Im pulling out that argument but it must be done). You read on Buddhist ideas about gratitude yet you whine about horrible your life is, despite how horrible other peoples lives are? You need to really appreciate what you have.

I know a lot about fairness because Im a fair guy to be honest. Fairness isnt feeding everyone what they want, fairness isnt socialism, fairness is giving everyone a fair go (at everything) and then laissez-faire (let everything be). If people treat you badly then its not fair on you, sure, but there are ways to combat this.



I told you about fairness already, you seem to think that fairness is having everyone ok with crappy marks in school. No, employers wont be happy with an unproductive person, and that unproductive person is unproductive because they learnt nothing in their years of schooling. And ATAR is a reflection of how hard you work, if you get a 50 ATAR it means you dont know how to work and hence you dont find a uni.





From what your course aim is and the whole tone of your post I can say that you are passionate about the arts. Economics is the highest scaling non-maths/language/English course. And Economics is a humanity subject. Sure Visual Arts and Music dont scale high, and nor does Business or whatever you subjects you do. But in the end society only cares about the areas of academia that will directly affect them. Therefore the material sciences Physics, and Chemistry scale high, but what trumps them all are Economics, a humanity that gives great insight into how the world works.

And you cant accuse the scaling, its done on difficulty and performance of the cohort. So it just happens that Business gives easy tests because the real good stuff is covered in Economics etc etc. A maths subject scales the highest because its the hardest damn subject in all of academics (yes it is)

Sure maybe the HSC suits me but it only really suits me because I actually like school and the subjects Im doing.

But what really interests me is why you find Competitiveness so awful. I already referred to Competitiveness at the beginning of the post, but in reality competitiveness is what drives the world around. And no I dont say this because Im always the winner, in fact its the opposite, Im always on the opposite side of the good when it comes to competition. But Im glad that there is a 1st place to strive for because it allows me to improve and shape and hence advance my own mindset only because the competition gave me the motivation, the hunger for first allows me to improve myself.



What I find frustrating is that the only things you find intelligent is critical analysis. Which is just plain wrong. Real intelligence does not mean being able to think differently, anyone can do that, you dont need to be smart to think differently to 'critique' the world. The teachers who teach you how to do the exam are the ones who are telling you how to get a good ATAR, rote learning is unfortunately essential so you can get away from this dull year of your life and move on with life.




Justice is incredibly subjective unfortunately, your morals differ from mine and thats fine. Like I said before you dont know what fairness is. I am definitely not ignorant, I have been repeatedly asking for rebuttal to my statements. I do be stubborn in what arguments that I am defending but everyone is stubborn when they defend their point, but in no way am I ignorant.

Lol mate do you know how hard it is to become a doctor? Anyone who spends the 8 or so years studying then doing transfers then this and that, obviously cares about the achievement that they have gotten. Moreover the money driven doctors need to be able to keep their job while they are getting the money and hence they need to be adequate enough.

Ridiculous

Oh your post makes me so angry, there are so many things wrong with it, it's ignorance and assumptions, I honestly don't know where to start.

• Just because I think their are flaws against competition, doesn't mean that I am completely, 100% against it. What I dislike is thrusting everyone into a competition, whether they want to or not.
• About law: You do realise that law is mostly 99.9% prestige? And the ATAR is not an accurate indicator of hard work. Having a 99.7 ATAR is a sign of popularity of a particular course, not having high standards. Some people are naturally gifted to science and mathematics, and hence, get scaled up. There are people who just do the basics and still get ATARs in the 70s and 80s, whilst some academically struggle, and feel excluded from tertiary education, because most universities are too lazy to offer alternative entry schemes
• Throughout your posts, I have never read an essence that you care about justice or fairness. You have that annoying ''just deal with it'' attitude.
• Oh please dude, I know the real world. I know the ugliness. I know that things will never change, as people are too attached to the status quo. A massive fuck you. You think I live in some princess world? Look at my avatar. It's from a film called Idi I Smotri (1985). A film where there is nothing but suffering and pain. And I watch it, and I think, I wanna make things better for as many people as I possibly can. Ever read the novel Requiem For A Dream? There is a line in it about the 'world laughing at his pain'' because of he feels that no one is there for him. A good educated individual isn't just someone with a degree and a high school certificate. It's someone who reads, has conversations with people, engages in people from different backgrounds, has an open mind... something which I never got from school.
• And lol, the board of studies does not cater to anyone with disorders, and neither does UAC. Only a very few small minority have been granted special provisions. People with chronic arm pain have been denied writers. People with ADHD only get ''rest breaks'' even though in American public schools, it's the fucking law that they get more provisions. I can't name a single person who has been granted extra time. You are ignorant. And lol... at UAC, they only give you 5 bonus points. Which doesn't help at all.
• " You need to really appreciate what you have." Sorry, depression is a mental condition, not a state of mind. It ruins your life, ruins your ability to study. Ignorant twat. Really, I deserve an apology. Every psychiartist, social worker, psychologist, councillor would agree with me, and cringe at what you are saying, and probably know alot more about suffering than you do. If you were bullied, you would know how destructive it is. That statement made this argument personal.
• And critical thinking is intelligence, as it shows your ability to comprehend interpretation and apply it to situation. It's the mixture of history, philosophy, arts- it shows the humanity and that not everything is black and white.
• And yes, of course being a doctor of hard. Getting in and staying is hard, yet there are doctors that do not care, neglect their patients, and do it for the cash. And it is so easy to fake ''doing the right thing''. I'm talking about doctors who don't listen to their patients. Doctors who do not actually care, just do the work to be ''adequate''.

 

[barbernator]

Re: The Loaded Dog: HSC exams - Sydney Morning Herald

Oh your post makes me so angry, there are so many things wrong with it, it's ignorance and assumptions, I honestly don't know where to start.

• Just because I think their are flaws against competition, doesn't mean that I am completely, 100% against it. What I dislike is thrusting everyone into a competition, whether they want to or not.
• About law: You do realise that law is mostly 99.9% prestige? And the ATAR is not an accurate indicator of hard work. Having a 99.7 ATAR is a sign of popularity of a particular course, not having high standards. Some people are naturally gifted to science and mathematics, and hence, get scaled up. There are people who just do the basics and still get ATARs in the 70s and 80s, whilst some academically struggle, and feel excluded from tertiary education, because most universities are too lazy to offer alternative entry schemes
• Throughout your posts, I have never read an essence that you care about justice or fairness. You have that annoying ''just deal with it'' attitude.
• Oh please dude, I know the real world. I know the ugliness. I know that things will never change, as people are too attached to the status quo. A massive fuck you. You think I live in some princess world? Look at my avatar. It's from a film called Idi I Smotri (1985). A film where there is nothing but suffering and pain. And I watch it, and I think, I wanna make things better for as many people as I possibly can. Ever read the novel Requiem For A Dream? There is a line in it about the 'world laughing at his pain'' because of he feels that no one is there for him. A good educated individual isn't just someone with a degree and a high school certificate. It's someone who reads, has conversations with people, engages in people from different backgrounds, has an open mind... something which I never got from school.
• And lol, the board of studies does not cater to anyone with disorders, and neither does UAC. Only a very few small minority have been granted special provisions. People with chronic arm pain have been denied writers. People with ADHD only get ''rest breaks'' even though in American public schools, it's the fucking law that they get more provisions. I can't name a single person who has been granted extra time. You are ignorant. And lol... at UAC, they only give you 5 bonus points. Which doesn't help at all.
• " You need to really appreciate what you have." Sorry, depression is a mental condition, not a state of mind. It ruins your life, ruins your ability to study. Ignorant twat. Really, I deserve an apology. Every psychiartist, social worker, psychologist, councillor would agree with me, and cringe at what you are saying, and probably know alot more about suffering than you do. If you were bullied, you would know how destructive it is. That statement made this argument personal.
• And critical thinking is intelligence, as it shows your ability to comprehend interpretation and apply it to situation. It's the mixture of history, philosophy, arts- it shows the humanity and that not everything is black and white.
• And yes, of course being a doctor of hard. Getting in and staying is hard, yet there are doctors that do not care, neglect their patients, and do it for the cash. And it is so easy to fake ''doing the right thing''. I'm talking about doctors who don't listen to their patients. Doctors who do not actually care, just do the work to be ''adequate''.

poor post 2/10. so much spite in this post. A top tip as well, generalisation and hyperbole never work in an academic argument.

 

[Memento-mori]

Re: The Loaded Dog: HSC exams - Sydney Morning Herald

poor post 2/10. so much spite in this post. A top tip as well, generalisation and hyperbole never work in an academic argument.

How is this post poor? And lol, as if this is an academic argument. Just some idiot who thinks heaps of paragraphs = great argument. And what generalisations did I make? Please tell me, I'll explain my points a bit more.

 

[Kiraken]

On a large scale competitiveness is indeed what drives our capitalist world and makes the wheels of society go round, but I think it is very much up to the individual to discover what is truly important to him/herself and what role he wants to play in this world.

There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be part of this machine, nor is there anything wrong with wanting to climb ladders in society (and the HSC is indeed a good starting point, although I would still argue not an essential one). Regarding the initial issue of criticising societal pressure on students: I don't think the pressure is unreasonable. Society will pressure you all the time to conform...it won't stop at the HSC and this is human nature. Part of growing up is learning to face this pressure and not let it affect your decisions. Do what you think is best for you and the ones you love, fuck the expectations of society.

I love this post so much

 

[Kiraken]

Money helps you live but it sure as hell doesn't give you a POINT to live. I dislike this dog-eat-dog mentality immensely. Because the thing is, it doesn't really have a point. Why do we just try to accept it?

 

[barbernator]

Re: The Loaded Dog: HSC exams - Sydney Morning Herald

How is this post poor? And lol, as if this is an academic argument. Just some idiot who thinks heaps of paragraphs = great argument. And what generalisations did I make? Please tell me, I'll explain my points a bit more.

This is absolutely an academic argument. That is the whole point of the thread.

Here are some generalisations and exaggerations you made (there are a lot of them)

- You do realise that law is mostly 99.9% prestige?
- the ATAR is not an accurate indicator of hard work
- most universities are too lazy to offer alternative entry schemes
- Oh please dude, I know the real world. I know the ugliness.
- the board of studies does not cater to anyone with disorders, and neither does UAC. Only a very few small minority have been granted special provisions. ( i know a heap of people who get special provisions, they just put in leg work to get them)
- Ignorant twat. Really, I deserve an apology.

and finally
- just do the work to be ''adequate'' (why is there anything wrong with this? you may say "doctors directly deal with peoples livelihoods...." but just like anyone else working in a public field others will have an impact on lives as well. Financial advisors may do an "adequate" job, plumbers, electricians the like. I must say I would rather have an "adequate" doctor than no doctor at all)

they are the main ones.
I would like to also make a sidepoint, scaling is based on each subject's performance in English. So you can't draw the "oh they scale so well because it is maths and science" card, because frankly they scale well because the people that do them perform well in English, and by extension should be scaled well. In any given year, not that it is likely to happen, but any subject could scale well, it just depends on their performance in english.

 

[Bored_of_HSC]

Money helps you live but it sure as hell doesn't give you a POINT to live. I dislike this dog-eat-dog mentality immensely. Because the thing is, it doesn't really have a point. Why do we just try to accept it?

It can for some of people. The thrill of gaining money, the risks. Not to mention the joy from spending too.

Edit: this isn't my view but it seems feasible to me that some people are like this

 

[enoilgam]

With regards to maths and science scaling specifically, they scale well because they are difficult. Even if you have a talent in them, they are still have more of a base difficulty than other subjects. Say for legal studies, it doesnt scale well because it is not that difficult - so if you have a talent in this subject, you have the advantage of being good at an easy subject, with the disadvantage of it's scaling (which isnt that bad anyway). Conversely, if you have a talent in physics, you have the disadvantage of being good at a difficult subject, whilst having the advantage of it's scaling. So the two kind of cancel each other out if that makes sense.

 

[Kiraken]

It can for some of people. The thrill of gaining money, the risks. Not to mention the joy from spending too.

Edit: this isn't my view but it seems feasible to me that some people are like this

I don't really see how though. It's not the money itself, it's what the money can get you i suppose that matters.

But even then, I accept people think that way, I just don't understand why you would limit yourself to living a life in a vast competition with everyone else that is impossible to "win". Like if life is a competition, how do you win?

 

[seanieg89]

Money helps you live but it sure as hell doesn't give you a POINT to live. I dislike this dog-eat-dog mentality immensely. Because the thing is, it doesn't really have a point. Why do we just try to accept it?

For some people it does, and who am I to say that it is "wrong" to pursue such things? I am more bothered by people who DON'T enjoy this lifestyle yet throw away dreams for the sake of conformity, than those who truly do enjoy the rat race.

(Pretty sure your views are quite similar to mine on this matter though from talking to you in the past.)

 

[Kiraken]

Getting back to the question at hand

"does society put too much pressure on students to achieve academically at the expense of a well-rounded education?"

I don't think this is the case. Academic achievement pretty much only matters in school and in uni. Out there, in "wider" society, being an all-rounded person applies much more. If anything, getting the most out of society requires an individual to be far more than academic. So really, society itself doesn't pressure people to achieve academically. What is pressuring students to achieve academically is getting onto a good launching pad by which to "jump" into society later as an adult and make the most of it. But once you've taken the dive, there is a lot more stuff apart from academics that decides what happens next

 

[barbernator]

good post ^

 

[deswa1]

Just giving my two cents about the scaling- the system is set up fairly and 4U maths scales better because the quality of the candidature that sit it is much higher. It deserves to scale higher to compensate for the fact that you are likely to get a lower rank in the course because you are competing against better people.

Having said this- the system is stacked towards people who are naturally good at maths and sciences. If you are naturally very talented at maths, you will get say 93 in 4U very confortably and this scales to an ATAR equivalent of 99.95. By contrast, if you are naturally strong in the histories say, you need 96+ in modern (which is state rank or close to it) to achieve the same result. In a way, I think the system overcompensates towards people who are good at maths and stuff but I know a lot of you will disagree with me on this so I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say.

 

[Kiraken]

For some people it does, and who am I to say that it is "wrong" to pursue such things? I am more bothered by people who DON'T enjoy this lifestyle yet throw away dreams for the sake of conformity, than those who truly do enjoy the rat race.

(Pretty sure your views are quite similar to mine on this matter though from talking to you in the past.)

Yeah I see this point and agree with it

 

[Bored_of_HSC]

I don't really see how though. It's not the money itself,it's what the money can get you i suppose that matters.

But even then, I accept people think that way, I just don't understand why you would limit yourself to living a life in a vast competition with everyone else that is impossible to "win". Like if life is a competition, how do you win?

Meh, they've got their priorities. There're many billionaires who'd be able to buy ANYTHING, yet they still want to hold power. (eg recently that ceo guy from facebook isn't stepping down as leader even though the share price is falling)

And life isn't for "winning" even if you take any other pursuit imo

 

[Bored_of_HSC]

I don't think this is the case. Academic achievement pretty much only matters in school and in uni. Out there, in "wider" society, being an all-rounded person applies much more. If anything, getting the most out of society requires an individual to be far more than academic. So really, society itself doesn't pressure people to achieve academically. What is pressuring students to achieve academically is getting onto a good launching pad by which to "jump" into society later as an adult and make the most of it. But once you've taken the dive, there is a lot more stuff apart from academics that decides what happens next

+ a billion

 

[enoilgam]

Having said this- the system is stacked towards people who are naturally good at maths and sciences. If you are naturally very talented at maths, you will get say 93 in 4U very confortably and this scales to an ATAR equivalent of 99.95. By contrast, if you are naturally strong in the histories say, you need 96+ in modern (which is state rank or close to it) to achieve the same result. In a way, I think the system overcompensates towards people who are good at maths and stuff but I know a lot of you will disagree with me on this so I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say.

The question is though, is the 93 in MX2 harder to obtain then the 96 in history. Lets say you have two people - one is talented in maths and one is talented in history and they talent they have is equal (sounds like something from economics). Now, would both people be able to score a mark in their respective subjects which scales equally?

 

[Kiraken]

Meh, they've got their priorities. There're many billionaires who'd be able to buy ANYTHING, yet they still want to hold power. (eg recently that ceo guy from facebook isn't stepping down as leader even though the share price is falling)

And life isn't for "winning" even if you take any other pursuit imo

100% agree with this