Can marks measure the intellect? - Page 2

Originally posted by: liza93

Hi ,

This is one topic which, i think, is very important nowadays in context of the school going kids. 'Marks', for which students end up exceeding all limits of what is called being "sane". They get all night, skip meals, take pills and after all this, if they do not get good marks, they can even commit suicide! But one question keeps cropping up in my head that do these tests really measure a person's intelligece?

Do post your views.

if a person cant even figure out how to get good marks, which is one of the easiest thing, then the person does not even qualify for intelligence test😉

Originally posted by: chal_phek_mat

if a person cant even figure out how to get good marks, which is one of the easiest thing, then the person does not even qualify for intelligence test😉

is it?? please ellaborate and tell me how, so that, everyone can follow your formula and without having to put in any extra effort, get above 95%, 'coz after all figuring out how to get good marks IS one of the easiest things, isn't it??then all the people out there who are committing suicide just because they did not get good marks, can be spared. And if marks really measure intellect, then we all should stop calling einstein THE genius because he failed in elementry school.

Originally posted by: liza93

is it?? please ellaborate and tell me how, so that, everyone can follow your formula and without having to put in any extra effort, get above 95%, 'coz after all figuring out how to get good marks IS one of the easiest things, isn't it??then all the people out there who are committing suicide just because they did not get good marks, can be spared. And if marks really measure intellect, then we all should stop calling einstein THE genius because he failed in elementry school.

look at past question papers, look at common questions, ratta maro😆

rest of the knowledge you will have to pay for, lemme know if you are interested, I will send you the paypal info😉

regards Einstein, well intellegence has difference meaning for different generation, one of his most famous quotes "Albert Einstein defined insanity as "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

then according to him computer hard-drives and mechanical equipment would be defined as insane - refer --> Western Digital Hard disks😆

Originally posted by: chal_phek_mat

look at past question papers, look at common questions, ratta maro😆

rest of the knowledge you will have to pay for, lemme know if you are interested, I will send you the paypal info😉

regards Einstein, well intellegence has difference meaning for different generation, one of his most famous quotes "Albert Einstein defined insanity as "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

then according to him computer hard-drives and mechanical equipment would be defined as insane - refer --> Western Digital Hard disks😆

thanks alot for the offer, but if i had to "ratta maro", then i would rather pay and get the real and original question paper from my school before the exam than to get a half-baked knowledge from you which i already know of.

We are talking about relation of "intelligent people" with marks and not "rattu totas" with marks.

And about the quote, you yourself said that intelligence has a different meaning for different generations, accordingly, the meaning of insanity should also be changed so that it can be linked to "hard disks" and "mechanical equipments".

Originally posted by: chal_phek_mat

if a person cant even figure out how to get good marks, which is one of the easiest thing, then the person does not even qualify for intelligence test😉

well said.

only thing i'd qualify that with following- "provided they know they have to get good grades". if someone knows they dont have to get good grades, because they got other talents, then it doesn't matter i think.

Do exam scores reflect intelligence.....well, to an extent YES!!! Are they the absolute measure of intelligence...not only NO but HELL NO!!!

A person's performance on exams is dependent on mostly their preparation - how thorough they were with the preparation and how much they practiced before writing the exam. If person A is a genius and person B has average IQ, it would take lot more hours of study for person B to score as high as person A but it is still doable. Now, if someone has below average IQ, then that's another case. Therefore, generally speaking, the study hours may vary based on the IQ level but the end results could still be the same if one is driven and motivated 😊

That said; society, specially the academic learning centers like schools and colleges, have no other measure to assess one's "intelligence" or eligibility for fixed amount of seats for which there's stiff competition. Therefore, one of the sure shot ways to convince the admissions committee is to do well on exams. Hence, the importance of scoring high on exams can't be undermined.

As far as the comment made about mechanical devices not following Einstien's definition of insanity....last I knew, the machine churns out the exact same output if similar inputs are put in.....and Einstein made that statement for humans...not machines. Don't really know where cpm is coming from.

Originally posted by: liza93

And if marks really measure intellect, then we all should stop calling einstein THE genius because he failed in elementry school.

people grow, people change, people develop, people learn, people get opportunities to sit in patent offices and learn new things, people start feeling motivated. he was probably a duffer when he failed.😉

second point- we are talking about correlation between marks and intelligence. It aint a perfect one but it's as good as any other measurement out there, provided someone does want to do well and still cant. Show me something better.😉

third- exceptional people. exceptional, implying exceptions. cant take those exceptions and bank on them as regular outcomes.😉

which is why they say " padhoge likhoge banoge nawaab, naheen padhoge toh banoge ******".😉

cant also be confusing here between success in life, however one defines that, and intelligence. success comes in many ways, not all of which require someone to be intelligent, though intelligence is still one of the best attributes to have imo. that said, to the extent there is some correlation between success and intelligent people, there's likely even a stronger one imo between marks and intelligence, specifically because it removes some of the "noisy" success factors from the equation. we're not generally testing for interpersonal or leadership skills for example when we're doing tests.

Originally posted by: chatbuster

people grow, people change, people develop, people learn, people get opportunities to sit in patent offices and learn new things, people start feeling motivated. he was probably a duffer when he failed.😉

second point- we are talking about correlation between marks and intelligence. It aint a perfect one but it's as good as any other measurement out there, provided someone does want to do well and still cant. Show me something better.😉

third- exceptional people. exceptional, implying exceptions. cant take those exceptions and bank on them as regular outcomes.😉

which is why they say " padhoge likhoge banoge nawaab, naheen padhoge toh banoge ******".😉

Actually, contrary to what you said about einstein being a duffer, he loved experimenting since the age of five and was never a duffer, it's just that he loved experimenting out of the syllabus because the outcome of those experiments was not there in the course books, that is why he was always intelligent, because he was not interested in conditioning his mind according to the books and reading and learning, along with 40 other students, the same kind of books, because if he had done so, we would never have the "mass energy equvilance" theory and would never have the photo-electric effect.

about the 2nd observation, i would like to say that atleast nowadays, marks(according to you, reflect intelligence)also reflect the ability to mug up(that's what most students do) without understanding the subject, ability to cheat during exams( which is common), and some teachers also do partiallity.

3rd, ofcourse not everyone can end up like einstein because everyone does not want to make new discoveries, everyone does not want to learn something which is not there in the books and everyone does not have the power to observe and learn.

and about the quote, maybe you should tell that to Bill gates, he would probably give up being the chairman of microsoft and go back to complete his studies,or to larry ellison, or to dhirubhai ambani.

for eg- i can consider myself to be intelligent if i am getting above 98%, but if tomorrow a class 1 student stands in front of me and asks me to recite all the hindi syllables and i won't be able to, i would look like a dumb person in front of her. what an irony.

Originally posted by: liza93

Actually, contrary to what you said about einstein being a duffer, he loved experimenting since the age of five

a lot of kids do, even some of the ones who turn out stupid. not necessarily a prerequisite to being intelligent. some folks for example hate the labs, yet find a way to be brilliant at not one, but multiple different fields.😊

and was never a duffer, it's just that he loved experimenting out of the syllabus because the outcome of those experiments was not there in the course books, that is why he was always intelligent, because he was not interested in conditioning his mind according to the books and reading and learning, along with 40 other students, the same kind of books, because if he had done so, we would never have the "mass energy equvilance" theory and would never have the photo-electric effect.

if u notice, i've been qualifying things with "if someone wants to get good marks and still cant". motivation is something i've mentioned before.😊

about the 2nd observation, i would like to say that atleast nowadays, marks(according to you, reflect intelligence)also reflect the ability to mug up(that's what most students do) without understanding the subject, ability to cheat during exams( which is common), and some teachers also do partiallity.

cant help it if we cant make distinctions between "reflect" and "correlation". correlation works in terms of averages, reflect implies invariance to a large extent.😉

3rd, ofcourse not everyone can end up like einstein because everyone does not want to make new discoveries, everyone does not want to learn something which is not there in the books and everyone does not have the power to observe and learn.

does not want or is incapable of?😉

and about the quote, maybe you should tell that to Bill gates, he would probably give up being the chairman of microsoft and go back to complete his studies,or to larry ellison, or to dhirubhai ambani.

he obviously studied hard enough at some stage to get into harvard in the first place. and got good marks too. let's not be suggesting he didnt. we are also not requiring everyone to be PhDs now, are we?😉

and yes, bill gates and einsteins are always the rabbits we pull outa the hat whenever we want to generalize from exceptions. nothing new there. 😆exceptional as they are, not very good examples to generalize from because most kids who drop-out, who cant pass exams, would and should be considered stupid😉

for eg- i can consider myself to be intelligent if i am getting above 98%, but if tomorrow a class 1 student stands in front of me and asks me to recite all the hindi syllables and i won't be able to, i would look like a dumb person in front of her. what an irony.

i think we can have this discussion when we can differentiate between "reflect" and "correlation". else we can end up with specific personal examples galore. also, there are marks and there are marks. if u wanted to talk narrowly about marks for reciting hindi syllables, we'd be having another discussion. as far as i am concerned, i thought we were talking about the broad range of studies, some of them requiring the kind of analytical/ symbolic thinking generally associated with intelligence.😉