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Koreans beat Americans in tests?
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demi

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Location: London

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 9:39 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Compare that to the best/most funded uni in your country Canada I presume?

England.

You're right about the nobel laureates, but are you aware that in proportion to our respective poulations the UK has one more nobel prizes than USA.

I'm sure you don't need me to quote a source....it's easy to find a listing for number of nobel prizes by country.

demi

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Location: London

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 9:41 pm Post subject:

Quote:

has one more nobel prizes

Sorry...won. My sincere apologies...very tired

Qinella

Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 9:48 pm Post subject:

Demi.. you make a couple threads mocking Americans and saying how stupid they are, then act all surprised and amused when Americans get defensive or argumentative about it. I wouldn't go on about how stupid other people are if I were you.. because honestly you're presenting yourself as an ignorant rube who just figured out how to use Google.

demi

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Location: London

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 9:55 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Demi,..you make a couple threads mocking Americans and saying how stupid they are, then act all surprised and amused when Americans get defensive or argumentative about it. I wouldn't go on about how stupid other people are if I were you.. because honestly you're presenting yourself as an ignorant rube who just figured out how to use Google.

Qinella...ppl on here made me like this. Smile

I don't go around in day to day life slagging off americans. I do it on here because of the evil, arrogant things so many ppl (usually americans) write on here about Korean culture and koreans. But you don't mind that right? Get off your horse Qinella.

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Joined: 01 Apr 2007

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 10:04 pm Post subject:

demi wrote:

It doesn't matter. England is good and all (I never said it wasn't); my point (as I demonstrated) was simply that American universities are at the top of the heap both in absolute rankings and on average. Live with it.

demi

Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Location: London

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 10:30 pm Post subject:

Quote:

It doesn't matter. England is good and all (I never said it wasn't); my point (as I demonstrated) was simply that American universities are at the top of the heap

True....but you have not been completely honest. There is no PISA (that i know of) at university level. Those tables you quoted don't reflect anything about the intelligence in one country compared to another. For example there are no standard international tests that law/sciance/maths students at various univeristies take so as to compare them with their peers.

I didn't make this thread saying 'American universities are cr@p.' The information I directed you to is clear and unambiguous. As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, and as many previous posters have previously said......'Americans aren't generally a smart lot'

It's like, only the Americans on here seem to pretend this general perception of their country men/women is not true. So many places you go in this world ppl generally have an image of Americans as stupid/ignorant individuals. The same perception is not held about Canadians/British/Australians/Japanese/Chinese. Is this image totally unjustified?

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Joined: 01 Apr 2007

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 10:44 pm Post subject:

demi wrote:

Quote:

It doesn't matter. England is good and all (I never said it wasn't); my point (as I demonstrated) was simply that American universities are at the top of the heap

Man, it doesn't matter. I have been completely honest. If you're trying to suggest that any one country is "more intelligent" than another, then that's complete and utter rubbish. The image held of American's being "stupid", is merely a prejudice people have, and is completely unfounded. Obviously some Americans are ignorant (same as any country) but that has nothing to do with intelligence. And I've already given you info to show that American universities are tops. Just accept it and move on. Rolling Eyes

oskinny1

Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Location: Right behind you!

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 10:46 pm Post subject:

demi wrote:

I do it on here because of the evil, arrogant things so many ppl (usually americans) write on here about Korean culture and koreans.

I think you are becoming too Korean. In my opinion there are a lot of people here slagging off on Koreans (for many reasons) but to assume that most are Americans is unfair (unless you know something I don't).

newton kabiddles

Joined: 31 Mar 2007

Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 12:55 am Post subject:

Qinella wrote:

Before you guyz go trotting out the ol' 'Americans are taught to think critically' battle horse, please look at this photograph:

For a nation of critical thinkers, it's funny those were our two best options, no?

Raise the US president's salary to about 50 mil a year and you'll get better candidates. Why take the job at 400,000 a year when you can be CEO of a large corporation and make 50 mil or more? You have to be crazy to be the US president.

mnhnhyouh

Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom

Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 5:47 am Post subject:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat wrote:

our universities are still by far the best. No other country even comes close.

I would like to pose a couple of questions for you.....

1) Has the U.S. slipped down the PISA ranks over the last decade or so? If so what impact will this have on the U.S. university system?

2) I know that a fair percentage of U.S. PhD. students in United States universities are from overseas, and a huge number from China. These students do not tend to stay on in the United States, but go home to bolster their own education systems. University rankings are worked out in many ways, academics / undergraduate student, academics / postgraduate student, funding / academic, peer reviewed publications / academic, and combinations of these and other data. How much do overseas trained and soon to be living students contribute to the ranking of U.S. universities?

h

Wisconsinite

Joined: 05 Jan 2007

Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 7:10 am Post subject:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat wrote:

Oh well, our universities still trounce theirs (which is what really counts). And Koreans are only smarter at math/science, I doubt they're up to snuff in the humanities, or when it comes to academic writing (most Koreans I know have never read a work of literature in their lives).

That is actually true. I teach ESL in America and my students are Korean. They do awesome in math and science but in humanities they struggle, particularly with writing (and not plagirising) they tell me it is because they never had to write in Korea and don't know how.

Comparing Korean education and American education is like comparing apples to oranges. The end result of both systems is completely different, the funding is different, curriculum is different, structure is different. Yes, Koreans do better on tests but I still believe that American education is one of the better systems in the world(we still have a lot of work to do, don't get me wrong) for educating such a diverse population of students. I don't know about other countries that have beaten our scores because I don't know anything about their education systems and won't try to guess. I would be curious to learn though.

Hollywoodaction

Joined: 02 Jul 2004

Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 8:39 am Post subject:

Don't you think Koreans are at an advantage since the vast majority of Korean kids speak Korean as their first language--the language in which I'm guessing they took the test? Besides, scoring slightly better than average is still average, it's statistically insignificant.

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Joined: 01 Apr 2007

Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 10:13 am Post subject:

mnhnhyouh wrote:

1) I'm not sure really, it wouldn't surprise me if the answer is yes. As for what effect I think it would have, the answer is not much. The common adage seems to be that U.S. high schools are easy but our universities are difficult, whereas many other countries tend to be the opposite. This is only what I've heard, but I think it's probably true. I can vouch that in the U.S. universities are a whole different ball game from high school, and those kids who can't hack it, fail. Is it fair? (like maybe their high schools should have better prepared them) I dunno, but that's the way it is. It's competetive, but those who graduate receive a good education. I have friends in other countries who had a tough time in high school, but they could slack off in university because it just wasn't that hard.

2) Again I'm not sure, but I don't think the international students have too much bearing on it. In the first place a lot of them actually do immigrate (you always hear about "brain drain" in China and India) because they can make way more in the U.S. than back home. A quick google shows that of the actual % of enrolled students in the U.S. less than 5% are international studentes: http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89192

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Joined: 01 Apr 2007

Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 10:20 am Post subject:

Hollywoodaction wrote:

Don't you think Koreans are at an advantage since the vast majority of Korean kids speak Korean as their first language--the language in which I'm guessing they took the test?

Besides, scoring slightly better than average is still average, it's statistically insignificant.

Not really. I mean in theory I agree, but then how well do most of them really end up speaking English? I took second language courses in uni, but there's no way I achieved any kind of fluency just from that. A lot of Koreans/Japanese/Chinese etc. spend years studying English and it doesn't get them very far in practical terms. It's like asking "how advantageous is it to get a good TOEIC score?" I would say not much at all (except in their own countries where they're still likely to get paid less than they would in an English speaking country like the U.S.). On the whole I would say having a native level of English is still a much bigger advantage than speaking, say, Korean and some broken English.

Qinella

Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib

Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 11:02 am Post subject:

newton kabiddles wrote:

Qinella wrote:

Before you guyz go trotting out the ol' 'Americans are taught to think critically' battle horse, please look at this photograph:

For a nation of critical thinkers, it's funny those were our two best options, no?

That's still not demonstrative of critical thinking (from the US, not you)-- in fact it's quite the opposite. Everyone knows to pull the top talent you pay top salaries. The fact that we spend trillions on god knows what but can't even offer half a mil to the damn president is indicative of a refusal to face the facts, a stubborn resistance to change, i.e. a lack of critical thinking.

Americans are highly deficient in the critical thinking department. As is Demi, our newest anti-American trole. Laughing

Hey Demi-- get off my high horse, eh? Gosh, I could've sworn you were making thread after thread about how much better England and the rest of the world is compared to America. Good thing you're not a hypocritical retard.

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