I never went to college. I never took an SAT exam. Hell I barely graduated High school! I am NOT an "educated man by the standards of most on this board.
I likee to watch people though. Seems to me I hear "he had better shoes than I did " when someone loses a race, “he kissed the bosses ass” when they don’t get the promotion. Rather than understand that maybe a little more training he may have won the race, maybe working a little harder and putting forth a little more effort he might have gotten that promotion.
Its easy to blame something or someone else for shortcomings and make excuses rather than face the truth.
To me the cultural bias in this particular context = an excuse.
Me, I want a reason rather than an excuse!
You are correct. It is too much to “suggest” that I not correct your many errors of fact and odd opinions in multiple Fora just because you cannot resist making so many exchanges personal–something to which you do not limit yourself in only exchanges with me.
I do not need to change my behavior because I am not the one who initiates hostility. You appear to be attempting to use your personal animus as a method to prevent me from correcting your errors. That is not going to happen. Sorry.
Well, of course it’s not a proper analogy, if you know what a regatta is. Like I (thought I clearly) said, though, I could see how someone *who doesn’t know what a regatta is * would make a different association and, therefore, choose “D” over “C”.
You misunderstand. Liberal is saying that choice D is not a proper analogy for the question, something one can know without knowing anything about regattas.
Incidentally, I must embarrassedly admit, and will apparently be the first to do so: I have (or, rather, had, before this thread) no idea what a regatta is.
On edit, I see that I still had the wrong idea: this thread made me think it was some kind of party on a boat, whereas it is apparently a race. Heh.
If you were able to restrict yourself to actual errors, that would be fine. But you imagine errors. There is an example of that in this very thread. There are more in the other thread where you showed you don’t even have the decency to apologize when you make an accusation that turns out to be false. (Very Christian of you, by the way.) And other instances in other threads. One in which I pitted you and people much more inclined to side with you, agreed with me. Given you have quite a large fan club here, and I a non-existent one, that was telling. Still, no apology. Still, you continue to do the same thing again and again. It’s a shame that you find some fault with the idea that we should avoid each other, except for official moderating. I guess thats more your parents fault than yours, though.
Perhaps you can find some sound advice and guidance at your church. Maybe even contemplating how an actual *practicing *Christian would act would be instructive. Your mere academic mastery of the subject seems to have left you wanting in the living life department.
Oh, but I should say: I agree that that question would be easier to answer if one knew what “regatta” meant, even though it is possible to answer it otherwise. I’m not entirely sure, however, that it is objectionable to include such a question. It definitely does introduce a bias in favor of people who know what “regatta” means, but that is presumably somewhat the intention, the analogies section of the SAT being in large part a test of vocabulary. As it happens, apparently, there is some correlation between that knowledge and one’s race/culture. But it’s hard (at least, for me, right now) to see what the proper response should be, given that similar issues would arise with all kinds of vocabulary testing (illustrated above by stories about cookies and apricots, though, of course, “regatta” is much more obscure a term). If we agree that vocabulary testing is useful, then what should be the criteria of demarcation guiding the selection of words to be tested? Can, and, more importantly, should this be done in a way that avoids the issues of “cultural bias” from this example? (I suppose the answer will depend on just why it is that one thinks vocabulary testing is useful)
My own position is up in the air at the moment as I think about it further.
In hindsight, this clarification of mine probably didn’t clarify anything. So, to re-clarify, Liberal is saying that choice D is evidently not a proper analogy for the question, something one can know without even reading any of the other choices. The same can be done for choices A, B, and E, eliminating all of them, all without having even looked at choice C.
As Indistinguishable is explaining, “D” can’t be chosen over anything because “D” is clearly wrong — a referee does not compete in a tournament in the way that a runner competes in a marathon. And if all the other choices are examined, it’s easy to see that none of them is a proper analogy to a runner in a marathon. So, not even knowing what either term is in “C”, it is clear that “C” must be the answer because there is no choice of NOTA.
Thanks for offering to clarify, but here’s my question to you: *How * is one supposed to know that “D” (referee:tournament) isn’t analogous to runner:marathon (the connection being, obviously, person:race) if they don’t know (as you yourself courageously admitted–thanks for that, too) that a regatta is a race? If they don’t know that regatta=race, so therefore the (closest) corresponding analogy would be oarsman:regatta, then I can see them making the person:*sport * analogy (as opposed to person:race) that I mentioned in my earlier post, which could very well (if not most definitely) lead them to choose referee:tournament.
I understand what you’re saying, Liberal–in fact, I expected you (or someone else) to say this very thing eventually–but I would think that, to someone who doesn’t know what a regatta is, it doesn’t matter if the role of a runner in a marathon is different from the role of a referee in a tournament. I mean, hell, for all the (fictional) peson knows, *regatta * could be an Italian cheese, y’know? (Not so far-fetched when you consider “ricotta,” right?) And if that’s the case, then surely oarsman:regatta won’t even occur to them to be a likely runner up as a corresponding analogy.
That isn’t how analogies work, Li’l Pluck. It isn’t enough that there be some vague association among the terms. Contrast deduction, in which one argues from a general A to a particular B and induction, in which one argues from a particular A to a general B. In analogics, one argues from a particular A to a particular B. That’s not to say that analogies cannot be couched in deductive or inductive terms or processes, but they essentially represent the identity of a relation or correspondence between two particulars (for linguistic analogies of the type we’re discussing).
As it happens, computer programs have become proficient at solving these sorts of analogies, and the way they do it is by examination of tons of textual material. This suggests that the more well read one is, the better one is likely to do with analogies.
(On preview)
Then that someone doesn’t know what an analogy is. Analogies on more difficult tests — such as tests for admission into TOPS — are completely abstract. They are subject/target pairs of symbols, squigglies, and numbers, none of which even has a definition. The point is the relation of particulars, not of the whole. A is like B IN THE SAME WAY that C is like D.
I can see something happening like what you’re saying; a person decides “The relationship between runners and marathons is that runners are participants in the competitive activity of marathons; analogously, the relationship between referees and tournaments is that referees are participants in the competitive activity of tournaments.”, and therefore is led to select D. The intent of the test is that they infer a different (more specific) original relationship instead, but what’s to let the test taker know just what exactly out of the original relationship one is supposed to analogize upon? Ah, that’s tricky. It’s hard to put a finger on, but one is apparently expected to understand that even though referees are related to tournaments in a manner somewhat like that in which runners are related to marathons, it is a very weak similarity. An integral part of the relationship between runners and marathons, one is supposed to feel, is that runners are themselves the ones competing in marathons; any extrapolated analogy which ignores this aspect is unlikely to be the intended one. There’s a semi-subjectivity to this, but just like “Which of these does not belong?” or “What comes next in this pattern?” type questions, even though every answer can be rationalized to fit, there is still some basis, apparently, for judging the quality of answers; I can’t quite explain what is involved, but (even if perhaps only because of a certain familiarity with SAT type tests) it is immediately clear to me that the similarity between the relationships in the original and in choice D is insufficient (by failing to capture the fact that runners are competitors in marathons, it leaves out something absolutely crucial); what similarity there is to choice D could never be good enough to be the right answer, the right answer is always more strongly analogous than that. So, for someone with a feel for the kinds of analogies that are acceptable to these tests (similar to having a feel to the kinds of answers desired by “Which of these does not belong?” or “What comes next?” type questions), it would be relatively easy to solve by process of elimination even without looking at choice C.
But, certainly, test-takers are supposed to be able to be helped and nudged towards analogizing in the right way by seeing, of the possible answers, that though D can be made to fit in a way, C can be made to fit in a somehow “better” way. And for this nudging, they need to have some idea what a regatta is, sure. So, like I said above, I agree that knowing what a regatta can make everything much easier in this example. It isn’t necessary to know about regattas, it’s reasonably possible to get by without it, but absolutely it can make a difference. So my main concern isn’t whether or not this vocabulary knowledge is being tested; I’m sure it is. I’m more interested in the questions (as I brought up in post 109) of why we should or shouldn’t be concerned about that, and, accordingly, what we should do about it, if anything.
*Now * I see where you’re coming from (and what **Indistinguishable ** was trying to clarify WRT your earlier post).
Thanks.
On preview: And I see that **Indistinguishable ** re-clarified as I was writing this post between doing some of the work that I actually get paid to do, so thanks (again) to you, too!
All these theoretical ideas about how something might be biased are irrelevant to how they actually determine bias.
You have a question. Call it question 5. Overall, 90% of the people who scored in the top 25% of the test takers got question 5 correct. However, only 75% of the top 25% of test takers who are also the member of some group (and it can be white males or black females or whatever) got question 5 correct. And we are taking about tens or hundreds of thousands of test takers, so it’s unlikely a sampling error. No one can see any reason why that question might be biased. Do you think that question should be thrown out?
You’re welcome. It’s always a pleasure to explain something to someone who will bother trying to actually understand it. You were right to keep asking questions until it made sense to you.
Apologies if this was already mentioned… given the amount of discussion in this thread over the regatta analogy, it’s worth noting that the SAT no longer includes any analogy questions… the redesign from a couple of years ago that incorporated essay writing for the first time brought less-publicized changes, including the removal of analogy questions.
You could say the removal of analogy questions from the Verbal section was like the exclusion of quantitative comparisons from the Math section. Or, perhaps, like the elimination of the bowman from a scull crew.
