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Difficult Korean English exam question.

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Comments

  • #32
    ireland.man
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭ireland.man


    The suicide rate and mental health problems among Korean students is one of the worst, if not the worst in the world and I'm starting to see why.

    Apparently only 13% of students answered this question correctly. I think that shows almost nobody intentionally chose the correct answer.

    Btw, the correct answer is
    no. 5: "the former approximates to zero and the latter to infinity"


  • #33
    gramar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,045 ✭✭✭✭gramar


    This question is the equivalent of blindfolding them and then spinning them around in a round room before being told to find the corner.


  • #34
    I Heart Internet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    Orion wrote: »
    The question itself contains so many grammatical and punctuation errors that it renders itself meaningless. Good luck with that.

    True. Parts of it make sense...but the person who set the exam never really brought it all together in the end with a recognisable question.

    If the punctuation and grammer had been correct I'm sure most Irish students would find it easy.


  • #35
    Cool Mo D
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,419 ✭✭✭Cool Mo D


    ireland.man wrote: »
    The suicide rate and mental health problems among Korean students is one of the worst, if not the worst in the world and I'm starting to see why.

    Apparently only 13% of students answered this question correctly. I think that shows almost nobody intentionally chose the correct answer.

    Btw, the correct answer is
    no. 5: "the former approximates to zero and the latter to infinity"

    A multiple choice question with 5 answers, and only 13% picked the right one? That's quite a lot worse than you would expect from just guessing!

    It is a pretty awful paragraph though.


  • #36
    wretcheddomain
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,094 ✭✭✭wretcheddomain


    You'd know it was written by a Korean that's all I'll say.


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  • #37
    Fox_In_Socks
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,615 ✭✭✭Fox_In_Socks


    Mixtures of interpretation can resolve themselves like cherry blossoms on the crusted snow. Walk like a penitant between these two gates of uncertainty to find the truthful answer within. The fire of certainty coalesces like a horse in a field of hyacinths.


  • #38
    wretcheddomain
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,094 ✭✭✭wretcheddomain


    Fox_In_Socks wrote: »
    Mixtures of interpretation can resolve themselves like cherry blossoms on the crusted snow. Walk like a penitant between these two gates of uncertainty to find the truthful answer within. The fire of certainty coalesces like a horse in a field of hyacinths.

    You're a Korean English teacher I take it?


  • #39
    munchkin_utd
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,953 ✭✭✭munchkin_utd


    Nailz wrote: »
    There is nothing really wrong with the English that is being used in the first and second paragraphs, but it is just a totally ineffective way of speaking English.

    The point of language as a form of communication is to convey information in a set way which can be understood relatively easy by another person with roughly the same level of linguistic understanding as you have.
    Of course there are artistic and poetic means for which language can also be put across, but I bet in Korea that isn't the main function for it being taught in schools.
    I was sharing student accommodation with a Chinese girl, doing a degree in english no less, and she definitely couldn't do English as a means of communication.

    Lots of words, some seriously Shakespearean grammar, and no clue what she was saying, ever.


  • #40
    zuutroy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,854 ✭✭✭zuutroy


    Looks like something Russel Brand might utter, while actually saying nothing at all.


  • #41
    ardinn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,246 ✭✭✭ardinn


    I had an offal lot of drink last night and cant figure out if im bleary eyed still or what but I nearly got sick reading that either way!
    images.jpg
    http://slaneyfishing.com




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  • #42
    humbert
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,238 ✭✭✭humbert


    wretcheddomain wrote: »
    You'd know it was written by a Korean that's all I'll say.
    Yeah?


  • #43
    Mr. CooL ICE
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,851 ✭✭✭✭Mr. CooL ICE


    Seedy Arling wrote: »
    Answer that question?

    Unpossible!

    Impossibru


  • #44
    osarusan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,875 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Criticising the suitability of the text for an exam, fair enough.

    But I don't really understand the criticisms of the grammar, punctuation, or lack of a question. Selecting the correct option is the question - it's a comprehension question.


  • #45
    Herb Powell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,097 ✭✭✭Herb Powell


    ireland.man wrote: »
    As part of their final exam in English language Korean high school students were asked the following question:

    26. So far as you are wholly concentrated on bringing about a certain result, clearly the quicker and easier it is brought about the better. Your resolve to secure a sufficiency of food for yourself and your family will induce you to spend weary days in tilling the ground and tending livestock; but if Nature provided food and meat in abundance ready for the table, you would thank Nature for sparing you much labor and consider yourself so much the better off. An executed purpose, in short, is a transaction in which the time and energy spent on the execution are balanced against the resulting assets, and the ideal case is one in which (??). Purpose, then, justifies the efforts it exacts only conditionally, by their fruits.


    ① demand exceeds supply, resulting in greater returns

    ② life becomes fruitful with our endless pursuit of dreams

    ③ the time and energy are limitless and assets are abundant

    ④ Nature does not reward those who do not exert efforts

    ⑤ the former approximates to zero and the latter to infinity


    Never mind 18 year old Korean students, would most of our leaving cert English students be able to answer this???

    No, though it would be no fault of their own. It's utter nonsense.
    suicide_circus wrote: »
    cannot thank this comment enough. I was helping the gf with college work and read an academic paper she had to review. this thing was so chock full of unnessersary flowery language, industry speak and smug linguistic pirouetting it was laughable. this manner of academic wankology added nothing to the text and in fact only served to conceal anything of value or substance held within.

    It's actually bad enough that it puts me off trying to pursue anything academic, or trying to learn from journals. 90% of it is utter ****.

    No, I'm not stupid, I understand it, it's just such complete self-congratulatory bolloccks. The writing contributes nothing-ironically becoming shiit, rather than "good" or "clever".


  • #46
    jimgoose
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,196 ✭✭✭✭jimgoose


    That's a load of meballacks.


  • #47
    biko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,060 ✭✭✭✭biko




  • #48
    ressem
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,427 ✭✭✭ressem


    Herb Powell wrote: »
    No, though it would be no fault of their own. It's utter nonsense.



    It's actually bad enough that it puts me off trying to pursue anything academic, or trying to learn from journals. 90% of it is utter ****.

    No, I'm not stupid, I understand it, it's just such complete self-congratulatory bolloccks. The writing contributes nothing-ironically becoming shiit, rather than "good" or "clever".

    It's not nonsense. It's an overwrought statement that work is not it's own reward (AH Rant: govt, jobsbridge etc).
    As a "fill in the blank" exam question it tests whether the student understands the gist of the text.
    Inserting the 4 wrong phrases would make a nonsense of the sentence.

    It's more straightforward than the poetry interpretations and memory work that we were asked to carry out.

    If you wrote something similar, you should be forced to redo it. But as a reading comprehension test, we do encounter worse examples at work, in the newspapers and from politicians and are forced to interpret them.


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