An interesting article in the NYT talks about the increasing transparancy of China's National Administration of State Secrets (interesting name!) in providing death tolls of natural disasters. The full article is here for those who are interested.
What will prove to be most fascinating will be what exactly they define as a 'natural disaster.' The article restricts the definition to "earthquakes, hurricanes and typhoons", but leaves it open to interpretation (ex. a flood from a broken 3 Gorges Dam).
I mention this because of the high mortality rate in China's coal mines - where hundreds die each month. Just yesterday in the South China Morning Post (www.SCMP.com) headlines read of 27 miners missing after a flood and a fire. News like this breaks almost weekly. The good news is that we informed readers actually get a hard number. The bad news (as well as the loss of life) is that it's unclear how many of these cave-ins are not accurately reported - if reported at all.
"China’s coal mines are the world’s deadliest, with thousands of workers dying each year in floods, fires and explosions caused by lack of proper equipment and lax enforcement of safety rules." - 9.12.05 SCMP.com
peace. paul.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Monday, September 05, 2005
Going around, coming around
Well. Touche GRE. Touche. Yesterday I blogged about how rampant cheating is inside the Chinese classroom. Today, it came to my surprise that these antics would annoy me outside of the classroom as well.
Due to cheating, it seems that the GRE has decided to administer a 'split-test' format in China (+ Hong Kong), Korea and Taiwan. So, the anlytical writing section will take place this October and the verbal and quantitative sections will be administered JUNE 10, 2006. Yup, that's a 7 month gap, sports fans. Oh yeah, it's also $35 more.
Apparently they switched the format because students in this region "to restore the validity of scores for students in these regions. The paper-based Verbal and Quantitative sections that are administered will be retired from use after each administration, thereby removing the unfair advantage some past students gained by memorizing questions in advance of the test." Click here for the skinny.
Leave it to China to gain an unfair advantage through cheating, it's pratically a college major.
So, what this means is that I'll have to either A) report scores twice to schools and hold off on applying or B) hold off on taking the test AND applying until I can take it in the US of A where people don't memorize the test (at least I missed that class at SJU). Either way, it looks like I'll have to wait until 2007 before starting a program.
Xie Xie Zhongguo!
peace. paul.
Due to cheating, it seems that the GRE has decided to administer a 'split-test' format in China (+ Hong Kong), Korea and Taiwan. So, the anlytical writing section will take place this October and the verbal and quantitative sections will be administered JUNE 10, 2006. Yup, that's a 7 month gap, sports fans. Oh yeah, it's also $35 more.
Apparently they switched the format because students in this region "to restore the validity of scores for students in these regions. The paper-based Verbal and Quantitative sections that are administered will be retired from use after each administration, thereby removing the unfair advantage some past students gained by memorizing questions in advance of the test." Click here for the skinny.
Leave it to China to gain an unfair advantage through cheating, it's pratically a college major.
So, what this means is that I'll have to either A) report scores twice to schools and hold off on applying or B) hold off on taking the test AND applying until I can take it in the US of A where people don't memorize the test (at least I missed that class at SJU). Either way, it looks like I'll have to wait until 2007 before starting a program.
Xie Xie Zhongguo!
peace. paul.
My roof
We recently discovered how to access the roof of our building, only to find some pretty strange stuff. I suppose a roof is a normal place to place a used bathroom sink, right? I mean, seriously, who DOESN'T have a sink on their roof?
More pictures to come. Just a-waiting on a sunny (i.e. not smoggy) day.
peace. paul.
Zhongshan Ex-pat Crew
From L-R: Johannes (Germany), Constantine (Romania), paul. (USA, duh), Marcus (Australia), Mark (England), ???? (Germany) and front center is Tim (Israel).
This is a large crew of expatriates living in Zhongshan. We'll meet up about once a month to hang out and speak English at a normal rate, well, as normal as German English can be I suppose...
Good company once in a while.
peace. paul.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Cheating rife among university students
This story from the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com) really struck my eye. Listed below is the result of a survey asking university students whether or not they cheat. From my experience, they cheat every opportunity that they get. Yet, in their culture they consider it helping each other. When I was in Spanish class at SJU, if i was not sure of an answer to a verbally asked question I would consult my neighbor and ask for the proper vocabulary word. This, I felt was assistance and the prof never looked down on me for at least making the effort.
My students do the same, and I in turn do not look down on them for needing help with a word or two. The heart of this survey, however, speaks to exams and formally graded work. Cheating should be unacceptable in this graded realm. To combat this, last year my fellow teacher Ryan gave two separate written final exams to his American History classes. Rows of students alternated getting test A and test B. The tests contained the same questions, but the order was reversed (i.e. 'A' had questions ordered 1-50 while 'B' was ordered 50-1). The result was astounding.
Students would berely read the questions, so answers were as follows:
Q: "Who was the famous black civil rights leader who was shot and killed in 1967?
A: Huckelbarry Fin.
Q: "Written by Mark Twain, this famous American novel is about the adventures of a young man growing up on the Mississippi River?"
A: Martain Luthar King. (Either 'Tom Sawyer' OR 'Huck Finn' would have been acceptable.)
Just thought this was interesting... read the below article for more...
peace. paul.
Cheating rife among University students
By Chan Siu-sin
SCMP.com 4.9.2005
Four out of five university students surveyed on the mainland have cheated in examinations, a survey has revealed. The cheating included sneaking in strips of papers to exams, giving answers to others, taking exams on behalf of someone else and "hi-tech" cheating. According to the monthly China Youth Studies, 82 per cent admitted cheating, and 8 per cent said they were just "helping classmates".
The study also found that more boys cheated than girls and that girls and junior students tended to be more nervous than senior students about cheating. Zhang Xiaoming , from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said the "score-oriented" university system was to blame. ###
My students do the same, and I in turn do not look down on them for needing help with a word or two. The heart of this survey, however, speaks to exams and formally graded work. Cheating should be unacceptable in this graded realm. To combat this, last year my fellow teacher Ryan gave two separate written final exams to his American History classes. Rows of students alternated getting test A and test B. The tests contained the same questions, but the order was reversed (i.e. 'A' had questions ordered 1-50 while 'B' was ordered 50-1). The result was astounding.
Students would berely read the questions, so answers were as follows:
Q: "Who was the famous black civil rights leader who was shot and killed in 1967?
A: Huckelbarry Fin.
Q: "Written by Mark Twain, this famous American novel is about the adventures of a young man growing up on the Mississippi River?"
A: Martain Luthar King. (Either 'Tom Sawyer' OR 'Huck Finn' would have been acceptable.)
Just thought this was interesting... read the below article for more...
peace. paul.
Cheating rife among University students
By Chan Siu-sin
SCMP.com 4.9.2005
Four out of five university students surveyed on the mainland have cheated in examinations, a survey has revealed. The cheating included sneaking in strips of papers to exams, giving answers to others, taking exams on behalf of someone else and "hi-tech" cheating. According to the monthly China Youth Studies, 82 per cent admitted cheating, and 8 per cent said they were just "helping classmates".
The study also found that more boys cheated than girls and that girls and junior students tended to be more nervous than senior students about cheating. Zhang Xiaoming , from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said the "score-oriented" university system was to blame. ###
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