EVERYONE College-Bound?:SAT,IQ,Education, etc.

[CoffeeBreak_1]

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How does he do when he goes to college and has to take Physics 102 where the professors forces understanding rather than memorization or understanding just the concepts tested on homework? I’ll tell you because I went to an Ivy League college and also took Honors courses at a state school. They don’t do well because they’re simply not smart enough. I would study for days for exams (engineering) and it would rarely matter that much. Oh it mattered, but I’d estimate around 25%, ballpark figure that matches my previous EVIDENCE (something your ad hominem attack lacks). When I took the exam, each question was completely new and I’d have to take my knowledge (gained from studying) and apply it to complex situations I’'d never seen before.

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<p>The scenario you described is not how you are supposed to go about exam preparation at all. You don’t study to gain knowledge so that you can apply it to complex, never seen before problems on exams. You’re supposed to study to gain knowledge to apply to complex never seen before problems in your book or several books so you can do the same on exams. The latter is more time consuming. For example, my physics professor usually puts 4-5 completely never seen before problems on the midterms that lasts 50min. So what I would do to study is to first understand the theory, then start doing problems timed. I would go through the book; only doing the problems that looks completely unfamiliar and do five under the time limit of fifty min. If screw up. I would look at what I did wrong, strengthen my understanding, and move one to the next 5 unfamiliar problems. I would continue until I reach a consistency of successful attempts. This does take a long time, so I hit the ground running from day one. Needless to say, I’m satisfied with my grades.</p>

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You can’t take an average person and make them into a successful doctor. You can’t take an average person in science and have them graduate from a top school in physics. You can’t take an average person and expect that they can graduate with honors from Yale. An average person can’t write an award winning novel or a novel that is published for that matter. Average people don’t direct Best Picture nominees or fill up the pages of the New York Times. Stupid people can’t score above, say, the 50th percentile on any kind of intellectual examination. Average people can surely be very successful, become CEO’s, become President (!), become journalists, etc. But the elite is mainly reserved for people with innate gifts.</p>

<p>Agreed or not?

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<p>Yes, agreed. Obviously you can’t make an average person the next Einstein. But you can take the average person and have him graduate from a good state school. You can take a averagely smart person and make him become a doctor. You can take a average genius and make him the next Einstein. And for the record, I have consistently tested about two standard deviations in IQ higher than the score I have achieved as a lazy child. I may be an exception to the trends, but at least it know its not impossible.</p>