IIT entrance becomes easy to crack

IIT entrance becomes easy to crack These articles apply to India quite a bit and take on a particular poignance in the context of the calls to dilute the JEE. Knowing a word in terms of other words is no knowledge, no understanding. Yet, the Indian educational system rewards students to do just that, and penalizes those that do not. And the lone system that does not subscribe to this mindless practice is under attack from "reformers"! http://clsdemo.caltech.edu/46/02/LatinAmerica.htm His ideas undoubtedly came from his experiences in Brazil. I read about it in my copy of the book "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". I managed to find a snippet on the web here. http://lib.baikal.net/koi.cgi/ANEKDOTY/FEINMAN/fei nman_engl.txt_Piece40.11 Evidently, the Korean system has the same problem as ours. Here is a link, which also contains the relevant excerpt from Feynman. http://jeffinkorea.blogs.com/ruminations_in_korea/2004/02/ The relevant portion starts from the point where he says, "In regard to education in Brazil, I had a very interesting experience". Here is an excerpt from that: -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- "Later I attended a lecture at the engineering school. The lecture went like this, translated into English: "Two bodies... are considered equivalent... if equal torques... will produce... equal acceleration. Two bodies, are considered equivalent, if equal torques, will produce equal acceleration." The students were all sitting there taking dictation, and when the professor repeated the sentence, they checked it to make sure they wrote it down all right. Then they wrote down the next sentence, and on and on. I was the only one who knew the professor was talking about objects with the same moment of inertia, and it was hard to figure out. I didn't see how they were going to learn anything from that. Here he was talking about moments of inertia, but there was no discussion about how hard it is to push a door open when you put heavy weights on the outside, compared to when you put them near the hinge -- <i>nothing</i>! After the lecture, I talked to a student: "You take all those notes -- what do you do with them?" "Oh, we study them," he says. "We'll have an exam." "What will the exam be like?" "Very easy. I can tell you now one of the questions." He looks at his notebook and says, " 'When are two bodies equivalent?' And the answer is, 'Two bodies are considered equivalent if equal torques will produce equal acceleration.' " So, you see, they could pass the examinations, and "learn" all this stuff, and not <i>know</i> anything at all, except what they had memorized." -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- Feynman is talking about the system in Brazil, but he may as well be talking about the Indian educational system here. It is up to us to take note and try - at least try - to push for reform. The words by Feynman in this article ought to be etched in gold and posted in as many places as possible. It assumes more serious relevance in the context of the calls to dilute the JEE standards.