Higher math proficiency test: An extended-problem-solving skill evaluation tool

by R3G1R • 6 years ago

42 39 6 years ago

eindiran• 6 years ago

Who is this test aimed at? It mentions the math GRE, which would make me think that it targets people applying to graduate programs, but it doesn't really have that vibe and I imagine becoming a test that graduate programs would consider is quite a difficult undertaking.

fazza99• 6 years ago

looks like it's been slashdotted.

ogogmad5• 6 years ago

Haven't read the article (it's down) but isn't the best test for proficiency in higher maths that you can actually do higher maths? Why do we need these proxies?

thaumasiotes4• 6 years ago

Cost of testing. You can get a good idea of someone's ability to do higher math in an hour with an IQ test. If instead you give them a test of higher math, you'd need to train them to do it first, which would take much, much longer. The added accuracy of that test won't make up for the several-orders-of-magnitude increase in cost.

ogogmad5• 6 years ago

Fair enough. But there needs to be evidence that this stuff actually works. I'm reminded of the fact that Richard Feynman didn't have a high enough IQ to get into Mensa.

yetanta• 6 years ago

Not only that they would have either been using it consistently since they learned it or just learned it. I at one point could do differential equations (linear alg + calc). If you put one of the remedial problems in front of me I would not be able to do it. That info is just 'gone' from 25 years ago. But obviously I can do it. I got an A. I know enough right now to know what to go lookup so I could re-learn it if I needed to.

anonmidniteshpr• 6 years ago

(The link will not load for me, as of writing.)

The US SAT I of the late-1990's was far too easy (I only missed one Q with a mis-selected answer, but I'm no genius and didn't study or prep for it one iota (or epsilon, as the case maybe)). Static, multiple-guess Q&A tests aren't able to assess a broad range of orders-of-magnitude of capabilities because of their various vulnerabilities.

Professional Engineer and physics tests that include fewer, open-ended written-response problems that build on each other tend to be more rigorous forms of domain knowledge testing. Some Q&A can be used as a first-pass filter, but it shouldn't be relied-on how the US K-12 under NCLBA leans on excessive multiple-choice standardized testing.

SamReidHughes6• 6 years ago

I looked at most or all of the questions, before the test system went down. (Cue rant about modern software.)

Some of the questions are quite poorly worded, and I'm highly suspicious about one question with non-integral boundaries on a probability distribution defined over the integers. Since I didn't get to see results, I can't say whether they screwed up or not.

It seems like the question level was appropriate for students that took Calc I/II and some course like Discrete Structures.

bloaf• 6 years ago

Yeah, the wording is quite poor.

The second question about the distribution of random answers to the test is literally incoherent. They probably meant to ask a question about the expected number of random answers on a randomly completed test, but they worded it such that they are asking about the distribution of answers on a single test.

virtuous_signal4• 6 years ago

Assuming that every question in this 20-question test has only 1 right answer and you choose to answer each question randomly, what is the chance that you're so bad that you only get 4 questions right or less?

They probably mean for you to assume that 1) each question has 5 answer choices, and 2) you select one of them with equal probability. But given that this is question #2, assumption (1) is kind of a guess, and (2) should be explicitly stated... (the answer btw has to do with the binomial distribution - and you definitely need some heavy arithmetic, so are they testing your gut instinct?)

klodolph• 6 years ago

Some of the questions are quite poorly worded, and I'm highly suspicious about one question with non-integral boundaries on a probability distribution defined over the integers.

Yup. It sounds like they were assuming that you would use some specific simplifying approximation.

SamReidHughes6• 6 years ago

It looks like the "correct" answer was supposed to be "2.2 and 5.8" -- another poster mentioned the server sends answers to the client. But P(X=3 or X=4 or X=5) is .598.

It looks like they used the normal cdf approximation of the Bernoulli distribution, which would give .6857.

virtuous_signal4• 6 years ago

I think the following is poorly worded and possibly incorrect:

What is the area enclosed by the function f(x) = sin²x - x²(sin³x)(cos²x) and the x-axis — between -π/4 and π/4?

Well, the second part is an odd function so we know its areas are 0 over symmetric regions, assuming "area" means "signed area". So we're left with sin²x which has a trick: the integral of sin²x and cos²x are equal over any of the quarter cycles of the graph -- same shape and everything. So we have that over our domain, pi/2 = Int(1) = Int(cos²x+sin²x) = Int(sin²x+sin²x) = 2Int(sin²x)... so the answer would be pi/4 (which doesn't appear).

I also suspect that some of the answers must be wrong, possibly in the counting or probability questions where it is extremely easy to make a logical error.

In my opinion the author should have a third party scrutinize his/her answers. I'm quite certain I didn't get 40% of the questions wrong. (I have a math PhD, taught calculus for 4 years, scored 170 on the quant section of the GRE, and went through this whole "test" very carefully).

SamReidHughes6• 6 years ago

The function is non-negative on [-pi/4, pi/4], so you don't need any assumption about area meaning "signed area."

Your math is wrong on that problem. The integral of sin^2 over [-pi/4, pi/4] is (pi - 2)/4, which was one of the options. The functions sin^2 and cos^2 only have equal integrals over properly aligned quarter-cycles like [0, pi/2].

Traubenfuchs• 6 years ago

I pretty much couldn't answer a single question. With a lot of time I could have "bruteforced" a few, maybe. Getting something better than a F? Impossible.

Soon I will have a MSc in Software Engineering... I simply memorized my way through college math classes, just like most of my colleagues.

Math always made me feel dumb. I never had intuition for it. Deeper understanding was always just out of reach. I truly loathe math.

ur-whale• 6 years ago

Given what you just said, if I was you, I'd strongly reconsider my career choice (if you ever plan to excel at it, that is).

posix_compliant• 6 years ago

Data point: 70%.

Background: Software Engineer.

I found this to be challenging.

5bd352• 6 years ago

Just so you know, the test sends requests to the server on every answer and sometimes these requests silently fail with 503 error code, you don't get any points in such case, even if you answered correctly.

tromp3• 6 years ago

The test fails to show you which answers (it thinks) you got wrong. Which makes is pretty useless...

5bd352• 6 years ago

The frontend actually receives all the quiz data with the correct answers from the server, here is cleaned up version of it: https://pastebin.com/MF5TTBGr

Higher math proficiency test: An extended-problem-solving skill evaluation tool

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