So the trained monkeys
didn't see their command words and didn't know what to do because they were learning by rote, and didn't actually understand the subject?
Sounds about right.
I remember for my exams I did almost the polar opposite. I have a terrible memory, but I found a trick which was to understand the basic principles of the subject, then I could use those to figure out the rest of the concepts during the exam. The wording of the question doesn't matter if you understand the subject. Einstein famously said he didn't bother to remember anything he could look up in a book, I assume anything simple enough to figure out from basic principles would be included in that.
I did great in logical subjects like maths and science where that was possible and terrible in memory based subjects like history or geography where the main thing tested was your memory.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Tue 12 May 2026, 10:52,
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I doubt you could deduce what a linear factor was if you hadn't been taught the term.
it has a specific intermediate form, and given 'linear' it might be easy to think you were being asked the real roots like the students did, as they are directly related expressions. And applying mathematical techniques to different problems isn't rote learning, though I agree maths teaching in my day was light on first principles, though looking at my daughters it has improved
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 12 May 2026, 14:33,
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My comment was more on the state of education than the students
If you teach people by rote and get them to repeat homework or an exam until they pass, you just make people who are using memory rather than understanding to pass. This is very fragile, and as soon as you change anything about the test they are like that ant in A Bug's Life who was irrevocably lost when an obstacle was in their path until they were guided round that specific obstacle.
Students are just as feckless now as they were in our day or Plato's. No better, no worse. It's how they were taught in this particular school that failed them IMO. I was in a few schools during my education (father in forces), and they all had quite different teaching methods, I suspect this instilled a more general understanding rather than the sometimes singular focus of any particular school.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Wed 13 May 2026, 10:50,
Reply)