Saturday 19 August 2023

Calculator Story

 There's a test you take to get into the military.  Various scores come out of this....indicating if you are smart enough, and which fields should be open to you, or forbidden for you.

So, for all these years.....there was a math related set of questions on this ASVAB test.  

Example, if you had three quarts of fuel, in a one-gallon can.....how full was it?  30-percent, 50-percent, 75-percent, or 100-percent.

This portion of the test.....I considered simple (1976 testing).  You didn't use a calculator, and I breezed through the ten-odd questions with ease.  

Well....the Pentagon has decided that entry failures are bad enough.....that they are issuing out calculators for the ASVAB test.

I pondered upon this.  In using the calculator, you'd have to have a formula in your head to start with.  You'd have to know just what a quart really means or compares to a gallon.  I'm pretty sure in a class of 25 kids.....17 years old....that half of them have no idea of the quart angle to gallon angle.  So handing the marginal IQ  kid the calculator really doesn't mean much.

It'd be like asking a kid how many feet in a mile (5240 ft), and what 10-percent of the 5240 amount relates to, and if running 5 ft per second....how far would you get in 1,048 seconds (answer: a mile)?  There might be five kids out of 25....who'd get the formula right, within a minute.

Somehow, the Pentagon believes easing up.....will get more low IQ kids to pass ASVAB, and possibly enter the military.

I pondered upon this logic.   You'd end up in three years....with probably 100,000 low-IQ types in the Navy, Army, and Air Force.  'Sarge' would be standing there and shaking his head.....having to deal with this quality problem on a daily basis.

Who do I blame for this issue?  The high school education system, low quality teachers filtering into it, and graduating 18-year old kids who are marginally at the 7th-grade level.  

Thank God that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming.  AI will be able to tell stupid Airman Jones or Private Marty....what to do.  

1 comment:

patrick said...

when i was a kid there were 5,280 feet in a mile. and 16 oz in a pound of chocolate. nowadays you get 5,240 feet in a mile and like 14 oz in a pound of chocolate.