>I know this is a fav example to point out the ignorance of the masses, but
>as a teacher, it strikes me as a pointless exercise, similar to memorizing
>all the U. S. state capitals or the names of all the U. S.
>Presidents. There is a reason why we have reference books! A much more
>meaningful assessment: sit people in a library with computer access and
>printed materials and say, "Show me three ways you could identify the
>location of Malaysia". --As Carrol notes, we're eyeball deep in many
>different kinds of information; the crucial thing is to know how to
>find relevant and useful data. In an industrialized society, it's
>(practically) impossible to store all that data in your own long-term memory.
Not to mention, didnt' I read recently that students in other countries fare pretty badly as well on those kinds of abstract, no context questions?
Hell, I have what is colloquially referred to a photographic memory. I can't store it all, but give me a visual clue and no problem! E.g., I don't remember book titles, but what the book looks like, then the title. Or I remember where I saw the book (how it was displayed on a shelf for instance), then I remember the title.
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