[A posting on the NIU Faculty newsgroup]

                      RE: FAHRENHEIT 451 - SOME MORE DATA
                                       
   Dave Rusin (rusin@vesuvius.math.niu.edu)
   11 Jul 1996 17:24:44 GMT
       
   In response to recent discussions on TomPaine, I administered the
   following in the last 5 minutes of today's class (a review for a test
   on Monday). Response tallies and class demographics follow, along
   with a few comments. (I don't think it's worthwhile trying to infer
   too much from these little tests, although they can be fun.)
   
   
   I have shrunk the formatting for brevity.
   
   
   ======================================================================
   POP QUIZ
   
   
   Each question answered correctly gets you one point EXTRA CREDIT on
   Monday's test.
   
   
   (This is in reality an informal data-collection project assessing
   the nature of our general education and science education program.)
   
   
   1. Who is the current Vice President of the United States?
   2. What is the capital city of Canada?
   3. In what year did World War II end?
   4. At what temperature does water boil?
   5. What is the most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere?
   6. An astronaut releases a rock from shoulder height while standing
   on the moon. Will the rock
   (a) float away
   (b) remain stationary
   (c) fall but more slowly than on Earth
   (d) fall as if in a vacuum on Earth
   Thank you for your time.
   dave
   ======================================================================
   
   
   Responses (most correct answers listed first). Note that N=16.
   
   
   1. (Al) Gore -- 13
   Gorr -- 1
   Dole -- 1
   blank -- 1 (This one from a foreign national)
   
   
   2. Ottawa -- 6
   Quebec -- 4
   Montreal -- 2
   Vancouver-- 2
   Alberta -- 1
   blank -- 1
   
   
   3. 1945 -- 11
   1946 -- 1
   1926 -- 1
   blank-- 3
   
   
   4. "212F or 100C" -- 2
   100C -- 7 (one added, "...at standard temperature and pressure")
   212F -- 3
   99.9C -- 1
   "220F, 100C" -- 1
   100F -- 1
   blank -- 1
   
   5. Nitrogen -- 5
   Oxygen -- 5
   CO2 -- 3
   Carbon -- 1
   "Hydrogen, Oxygen -> Nitrogen" -- 1 [I don't understand that]
   blank -- 1
   
   6. (c) -- 10
   (a) -- 3
   (b) -- 2
   (d) -- 1
   
   
   Those taking the test are mostly senior or incoming graduate students
   in mathematics. It is perhaps relevant that many in the class intend
   to teach at the secondary level. The class consists of one foreign
   female
   student, one black female, one "adult" female, and 13 "typical" young
   white English-speaking NIU students (8 female, 5 male).
   
   Comments on the questions:
   
   1. Suggested by a TomPaine comment
   2. The wife of a former Canadian ambassador to the US was heard to
   complain
   that Americans' eyes tend to glaze over when talk turns to Canada.
   "I don't know," she commented, "maybe we should invade North Dakota
   or something." [paraphrase]
   3. Suggested by a TomPaine comment. I have heard of an incident in
   which
   some local high school students were asked to put into
   chronological order several US conflicts. Not only did someone
   place WWII before the Civil War, evidently one student put WWII
   before WWI.
   4. In accord with a TomPaine discussion I will have no problem
   accepting
   99.9C. I find it comforting that the metric scale was preferred
   and used correctly. I also noted that all except the foreign
   national (who might not even think about degres Fahrenheit) thought
   to mention the units used.
   5. I also mentioned verbally the opportunity to name the
   third-most-common
   gas; no one accepted the offer.
   6. Prompted by the "heavy boots" episode -- see
   http://clunix.msu.edu/~vanhoose/astro/0086.html
 [Now at http://lalaland.cl.msu.edu/~vanhoose/astro/0086.html --djr 1998/08/26]
   (Not only did the class in that story choose (a) more commonly,
   but those who did had to confront the fact that the astronauts
   themselves did _not_ float away. Typical explanation: "heavy boots".)
   The moon's gravity at the surface is about 1/6 as strong as
   Earth's at its surface.
   
   
   Comments on the quiz:
   
   I was not displeased by the students' responses. Actually I have had
   this experience before: that although the NIU freshman are
   disappointingly, um, undereducated, our graduating students and
   graduate students have a reasonable grasp of The Things Everyone Is
   Supposed To Know. This shows that either we can educate well, or the
   weak students go away, or both.
   
   (I am not quite as confident about our students' preparation _within_
   their
   discipline, for which the standards are much higher.)
   
   By the way, I think my soon-to-be-high-school freshman daughter would
   have done well on the test; her brother two years younger would have
   some trouble. That should pinpoint what I consider to be the level of
   these questions. To be consistent with observations about freshmen, we
   must conclude children learn for 8 years, unlearn for 4, then learn
   back
   for 4 more.
   
   Incidentally, my son assures me the third-place standing of argon was
   in his science text (6th grade).
   
   dave