site banner
bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   3348 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas, everyone!

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I was curious about the Wonderlic test after seeing it referenced in a comment sometime this week, so I took a look. Is this practice website actually accurate to the content of the test? I found it really quite easy, some trouble with not being familiar with Imperial units and American coinage aside.

42/50, but I didn't know what to expect and didn't particularly care about the results. I knew I got about three questions wrong as soon as I clicked "next". The test itself looks pretty "grindable" to me. Vocabulary questions are not grindable beyond knowing what to expect (X is to Y is as what is to Z, similar-opposite-unrelated), but are the easiest, logical questions are grindable (I guess most "normies" fail the "A implies B, A is false, is B false?" question), maths questions are super grindable (there's a bunch of mental math tricks that people simply don't keep in their arsenal now that they actually carry a calculator with them everywhere, plus a bunch of "how to discard the obviously wrong answer" tricks). With a few cram sessions you could probably get people to reliably score five to ten points higher.

It's still a good proxy for intelligence. A couple of years ago I binged on YouTube USE math prep videos. USE is the combined HS graduation/college entry exam in Russia, and your score decides if you can get into the MSU or another prestigious university or not. Kids in the stream chat were super serious about cataloguing every possible shortcut to tackling the problems, and at first I was kinda disappointed by this approach, using raw brainpower sounded fairer.

But then I realized: you still need that raw brainpower to catalogue and store these tricks, to select the right one and apply it correctly. Yes, Alice that is even a bit smarter than Bob can get a lower score because Bob spent more time on exam prep, but is it really that bad? Why shouldn't we reward people that can demonstrate diligence and perseverance in addition to raw mathematical brainpower?

Why shouldn't we reward people that can demonstrate diligence and perseverance in addition to raw mathematical brainpower?

It depends on what job you are selecting for. College admissions are a hammer when they should be scalpels.

A rough example; Someone going to college for a math degree might be interested in Research Mathematics or becoming an Actuary.

For the former, you should probably heavily weigh raw mathematical brainpower more. For the latter, you should weigh conscientiousness more.

These two people with radically different brain structures (IMO) and expectations from their future peers; but are made to take the same tests/exams.

Tangentially, if you are of the former type, you might not like the latter for various visceral reasons.

I went to college for Electrical Engineering. I was passionate about it and rarely ever "studied" in any flashy way. Then there were the kids with flashcards and fancy colored notes and whatnot. They often got better grades than me, but were often "worse" engineers. They sucked at programming, didn't know anything outside of the books, could not derive things from first principles if not explicitly mentioned in class, etc.

Those people should be working at powerplants, I should be working at a startup that makes robots.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats