<p>I’m willing to bet the college kid knew perfectly well how to convert cups to pints back in elementary school, when it was taught. But, just like all the state capitals and/or species of dinosaurs, he forgot it after the test. </p>
<p>I’m guilty of forgeting how to sing all the presidents in chronological order. ;)</p>
<p>^^^ I told my son the other day that my brain was like those college application boxes that only allow a limited number of characters before it either stops accepting more information, or it eliminates some of the info entered.</p>
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I think this is part of the problem. When I was young all liquid was in pint/quart/gallon measurements. Now you get 1/2 liter /liter/ 2 liter and more added. There is no standard. As others have said, science uses the metric system as its standard.</p>
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<p>Erin’s Dad - I agree that standard SI units are used in the sciences, but the pints/quarts ratio question was from a chem exam!</p>
<p>I can’t imagine why a chem course would ask kids about pints and quarts. That said, my younger son likes to cook and would have no problem with this question. My older son OTOH the extent of his cooking is pouring milk into bowls of cereal.</p>
<p>Being educated abroad and having to take the GRE to come to the US, I recall the fun we had learning the British system and its units like poundals, pounds, foot pounds etc. The most interesting thing was the gallon - if I’m not mistaken the Brits used to give a lot more in their gallon than the Americans. I’m curious if our northern neighbors followed the queen or Washington in their interpretation.</p>
<p>Converting pints into quarts is hardly something I have to do in any of my classes. Like lots of other posters have noted, we tend to use the metric system in science classes.</p>
<p>I still don’t know how heavy a solid ounce weigh.
But I am pretty sure about 12 fl ounce and 20 fl ounce glasses.</p>
<p>This same student could do what counts, most likely: convert metrics. US units are a load of tosh, and don’t make sense at all.</p>
<p>I’m a little horrified by the “chickens are birds” thing. Half the class has never even seen a photograph or a chicken?</p>
<p>I’m tutoring a third grader–one of her math problems this week said “You are pouring a full one-liter bottle of water into a one-quart pitcher. What will happen?
A. The bottle will be empty before the pitcher is full B. When the pitcher is full, there will still be some water left in the bottle.” (As I was reading the question, I was thinking “C The pitcher will overflow and water will spill on the counter”–that’s what MY kids would do.) </p>
<p>One change I’ve noticed is that kids today don’t really care about “knowing stuff”–they can just Google everything. H and I are trivia lovers and pride ourselves on our “broad general knowledge of just about everything.” Our kids aren’t impressed. Information is cheap and easy to get, so no need to keep it in your head anymore.</p>
<p>btw, speaking of chickens, I used to live in the poultry capital of the world, where chicken is the only meat a lot of kids know. Occasionally they’d have a little “moo moo chicken” and “oink oink chicken,” too.</p>
<p>My elderly father was ordered by his doctor to drink 2 liters of water per day. I had to consult the Worldwide Web to figure out how many pints/quarts/gallons that is. I won’t be knocking any rough edges off my D, who does know such things.</p>
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<p>No need. “Big box” and “little box” work fine for me:)</p>
<p>My AP National Scholar, (very high stats, etc.) let slip a couple of years ago, when he was already in high school, that he thought goats were male sheep. This is a very well read kid, but apparently there were not enough books in his early childhood or in his elementary school about farm animals. It was definitely a “where did we go wrong” moment for me as a parent, but it does give us something to tease him about for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>When walking down the halls of elementary schools I see cup/pint/quart/gallon projects from second to fifth grades. Do they all forget? Should we spend the time teaching customary units of capacity in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades on something else instead since students are likely to forget until they need to use that information? Just wondering. The new Common Core may change that part of the curriculum anyway.</p>
<p>Americans are just plain dumb. Why would you not use the metric system?</p>
<p>I don’t cook enough that I use that fact, personally.</p>
<p>How about this concept? “Clockwise” and “counterclockwise”. How many of these kids have ever used anything but their phone to tell time?</p>
<p>^ My DD just found out why “#” is called “the pound key” on her cell-phone. (Didn’t know # was shorthand for pound; also grew up overseas using the metric system.) LOL.</p>
<p>I forget stuff like this all of the time and I don’t think it’s a reflection of me or of the American education system. My kids occasionally don’t know things that I think are common knowledge but they surprise me all of the time with what they do know.</p>