

For Asians, School Tests Are Vital Steppingstones - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/education/a-grueling-admissions-test-highlights-a-racial-divide.html

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cargo8
Not sure if it's just me, but it sure seems like a massive case of
entitlement.

"You shouldn’t have to prep Sunday to Sunday, to get into a good high
school... That's extreme." Actually that's how it largely is for competitive
colleges, and if people are arguing for a merit-based admission system that is
_exactly_ what people should have to do if other people are willing to.

Tough to tell where the author is landing on this point in his article.

~~~
seiji
It's difficult for Americans to accept working harder (insanely harder) gets
you further in life. Intelligence is supposed to be innate, not something you
can manipulate by "working harder." Whether you are smart or dumb, you should
be happy about it and still be a millionaire.

It seems so _unfair_ painfully studying and drilling makes you seem smarter.
Why is it unfair? Because Americans obviously don't want to painfully study
and drill math and science and culture when they could be texting or playing
video games or drinking diet energy mountain dew xtreme (the dewiest).

~~~
sgrove
This seems unfair. First, there are absolutely economic and cultural factors
that cause noise in the meritocracy. Second, for those Americans who aren't in
disadvantaged economic situations, there's certainly an emphasis on 'being
happy' and being at least a bit of a generalist here which isn't as present in
many other places.

Reducing that to 'text or playing video games or drinking diet energy mountain
dew xtreme (the dewiest)' is dismissive and lowers the conversation.

~~~
seiji
Good point. I was approaching from a view of mostly well off Americans who get
annoyed when fer'ners show up and become more successful than they are. It's
completely different when you consider people who don't even know how to do
academic things well being placed against extreme cram school cultures.

See: waiting for superman, the lottery, a few Frontline specials about it, and
mst3k episode 816.

~~~
sgrove
Ah, yes, I see the context now. I suppose I have less an less exposure to
people like that these days, so they rarely factor into my understanding.

Probably fair to say there's a mix of different attitudes, understanding,
expectations, and hopes in the American landscape.

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tsuyoshi
This article only covers the elite "specialized" schools, which are not the
only decent option in New York. There are also the "screened" schools, where
admission is based on grades and attendence, not to mention the "audition"
schools, which focus on performing arts and base admission on an audition.
Failing to get into the very best schools is not the end of the world.

But the big problem is that the vast majority of children in New York City
(and many other cities all over the world, of course) come from families where
the parents are either functionally or completely illiterate, have no
understanding of how to study, and/or simply do not value academic
achievement. This is a big problem that you can't exactly solve by relaxing
admissions standards -- it was tried with CUNY, and it resulted in a mass
exodus of all the good students.

In China and the rest of East Asia, there is a centuries-old culture of
studying your ass off to succeed in life. The article cites Confucianism etc.
but it really derives more from the Chinese Imperial Examination, which if you
passed, guaranteed you a good job. Good schools and good jobs in China,
Taiwan, Japan, and Korea even now are usually only obtained by passing an
exam. When they immigrate over here and they encounter a situation where they
can benefit by passing an exam, they tend to excel.

By contrast, most of the other places that send lots of immigrants to New York
(the American South, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, to name
a few) don't have this cultural history at all. They don't know what to do,
and the schools are not entirely prepared to teach them.

~~~
Tycho
_But the big problem is that the vast majority of children in New York City
(and many other cities all over the world, of course) come from families where
the parents are either functionally or completely illiterate, have no
understanding of how to study, and/or simply do not value academic
achievement._

I think this is by far the biggest problem with education in western
countries, to the extent that it dwarfs any other consideration. Better
textbooks, better teaching methods, better equipment, better teachers, better
curriculums, better classroom sizes - they are all minor issues compared with
the children wanting to learn and their families supporting them on that
point.

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abraham_s
The real question to be asked is that whether the tests are serving the
intended purpose i.e that of finding the best students of the lot (best can be
defined as being most knowledgeable of the subject being tested). A student
with experience of solving of large number of questions will have an advantage
over another student who knows the subject matter but have not done any test
prep.

In India, where I come from, this is a almost a way of life. Almost all
prestigious institutions including graduate schools determine whom to admit
based on a test score (and an interview in some places), as opposed to the
practice in the U.S (graduate schools) of considering a candidate's GPA,essays
etc. On one hand this a very transparent method ,which is important in a
country plagued with corruption like India. But on the other hand it leads
students to play the "test-prep game" i.e practicing a large numbers of
similar questions. This has led to test prep becoming a lucrative business.
Students who do not attend the "coaching centers", which are often more
expensive than the regular schools they go to, will lose out to students who
do, even though the knowledge the subject is the same. In India it has
manifested as a problem when students from rural areas losing out students
from urban regions, due to lack of these test prep centers.

The truth of the matter is that such tests serves as a good mechanism to
condense a large applicant pool to a smaller one. But to base the entire
admission process on one test doesn't seem to be optimal.

~~~
Evbn
Why should the best students (and what does that even reslly mean?) get the
best teachers? Maybe the best students don't need great teachers.

~~~
yohui
I suppose in the context of abraham_s's post "best" is in the eye of the
selector: who is likely to be a benefit to the institution, including to their
fellow students?

"Should" high-achieving students and teachers be grouped together? I don't
know about that, but I would guess that the reason they often _do_ is rooted
in mutual preference.

~~~
abraham_s
"Best" is as defined by the selector i.e the schools. Whether the method
chosen to rank the applicants truly measures what the selector wants to be
measured is the real question. In other words whether the school end up with
the best test takers who may or may not be the students they were really
looking for.

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patio11
_The $REDACTED, like other $ETHNICITY families who spoke about the exam in
interviews in the past month, did not deny engaging in extensive test
preparation._

Can anyone see this sentence coming out of the New York Times for _any_ other
ethnic group? It's like studying geometry has the whiff of something
_suspicious_ to it.

~~~
ky3
Lol. :)

Jokes aside, there are dichotomic interpretations of "studying geometry."

There is studying geometry for its own sake, _otiose learning_ if you will,
just like the ancient Greeks did.

And then there's studying it to pass an exam, the extreme version of it as
portrayed and as you are no doubt first-hand familiar with in Japan, is 100%
guaranteed to cripple whatever inner inclination one may have had towards
geometry. Which is sad, because there's something wondrous about the nature of
space, and whoever sees a glimmer whereof shouldn't have that inner eye
pulverized.

It takes the likes of an Einstein adamantine to recover: "One had to cram all
this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not.
This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the
final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems
distasteful to me for an entire year."

In an age of abundance why wouldn't we rather have a million $REDACTED of
$ETHNICITY origin bloom?

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Anechoic
What is the relative success rate of ethnic groups who are accepted into the
elite schools? If (making up numbers) 90-100% of Asians who are accepted into
the school graduate, vs (again making up numbers) 40-50% of
blacks/latinos/whites, that points to the entrance requirements (including
exams) being a decent predictor of success; in that case, it should be less
about messing with the entrance requirements and strengthening the support
structure for other demographics.

If the numbers are flipped (a significant number of Asians get in but don't
graduate, and vice versa for the other demographics) that points to something
being wrong with the entrance requirements and those requirements should be
re-evaluated.

~~~
comicjk
99%+ of Stuyvesant students graduate, so that's not really a good measure at
the level of the specialized high schools. Also, there are practically no
black or Latino kids to compare. In 2011 72% of the students were Asian and
24% were white.

[https://reportcards.nysed.gov/files/2010-11/AOR-2011-3102000...](https://reportcards.nysed.gov/files/2010-11/AOR-2011-310200011475.pdf)

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frozenport
"memorizing surface area and volume formulas"? A=Pi _R_ *2? This combination
of simple problems and extreme time commitment embodies everything that is
wrong with the aforementioned approach.

~~~
BinaryAcid
Yea right. I'll take the doctor, pilot, and engineer who 'wasted' their time
on memorizing formulas and 'over studying' over the lazy, entitlement, 'just
enough' professional any day.

~~~
ginko
But good engineers don't memorize formulas. They understand them.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
False dichotomy much?

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jchonphoenix
What I'm getting from this article:

"It's not fair that asians get in because they work harder and try harder. We
shouldn't let hard work be a determining factor."

But who knows, I'm asian so I'm biased. I had to work my ass off for things
while other people went out, partied, slept in, went to bars and hung out with
friends. I studied for my standardized tests by going to the local Borders and
sitting there for hours without paying for the book but I guess not everyone
is that creative.

~~~
yohui
Do you mean the article, or the non-asian voices in it?

I felt the article itself presented a fair picture of the sentiments from each
corner, though I'm not particularly sensitive to bias.

As for the complaints about test-centrism, I felt they were echoing a belief
that life should be and success is about more than cramming and solo
achievement.

Extracurriculars, grades, and fuzzy-wooly essays/recommendations may be as
strong metrics as standardized testing, but neither are our current tests
nearly as good indicators as they could be.

For example, we could do more to promote problem-solving skills by providing
test-takers with a much larger corpus, promote a minimum level of teamwork by
allowing some collaborative problems, etc. Just some ideas.

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unobliged
Some context might be important here. The high schools mentioned in the
article are primarily science high schools (the test is the SHSAT: Specialized
High School Admissions Test), not general purpose super high schools. Other
specialized high schools in the city focus on humanities, or performing arts:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_high_schools_in_New...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_high_schools_in_New_York_City)

I went to Stuyvesant and knew people in Bronx and Brooklyn Tech, humanities
are not given nearly as much weight as math and science. That being said, the
way the test is scored favors lopsided performance in one section:
[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A1FFC385A...](http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A1FFC385A0C718DDDA80994DD404482)

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lindy2012
A high percentage of these admissions test questions do in fact call for
analytical thinking rather than/in addition to factual knowledge (referred to
here as "rote memorization"), so this thread definitely sets up a false
dichotomy.

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ExpiredLink
What is the purpose of school, education or selection?

~~~
w1ntermute
Why can't it be both?

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detox
Weak article. Typical bias/stereotype that has little strength or meaning that
I care about in it. Talent exists but no matter how talented you are, there's
education for a reason. And tutoring is just a boost for that. No genius just
absorbs information by himself.

