3 ms·

To me, this is less about the fact a single woman had to memorise a written driving test by failing it 949 times, and more about the mismatch between the test i

by jlees 16y ago

To me, this is less about the fact a single woman had to memorise a written driving test by failing it 949 times, and more about the mismatch between the test itself and the populace. Surely she is fairly indicative of a rural inhabitant? Why is the test so inaccessible, and how many others are there like her?

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>Why is the test so inaccessible, and how many others are there like her? The test should ensure that a driver can read read and understand street signs both symbolic and textual ones and respond correctly ... oh yeah, and drive the relevant vehicle. They should also be able to service the car sufficiently to keep it safe - pump tyres, check fluids, know mostly when it needs attention from a mechanic. Not everyone can do all these things hence the test appears "inaccessible".
kijinbear 16y ago
It would be pretty darned difficult to make a standardized test "match" folks who are illiterate or just barely literate, which this Granny seems to have been. BTW, literacy rate in South Korea is around 98% (most of the remainder being old women like Ms. Cha who couldn't get education during colonial times) so I don't think the test would have been too inaccessible to the populace in general.
jacquesm 16y ago
960 - 1 = ?
dkarl 16y ago
“She could read and write words phonetically but she could not understand most of the terminology, such as ‘regulations’ and ‘emergency light,’ ” said Ms. Park, the teacher. I see three possibilities. If these words are as normal in Korean as they are in English, then she failed to learn them because (possibility 1) she was so sheltered she actually had no exposure to basic knowledge required of any competent driver or (possibility 2) she has an intellectual disability that prevents her from learning new words and concepts without a lot of help. In these two cases, you can't blame the test. Possibility three is that the words for used on the test are government legalese that is never used in real life, and she did not understand that learning what they meant was a better strategy than trying to memorize entire sentences from the driving manual. In this case the test is partly at fault, but an intellectual disability would probably still be involved. (Though perhaps you could also blame educational traditions that stress rote learning and glorify hard work as a sufficient solution for any problem.) I guess all three of these scenarios require her to have some kind of intellectual disability, because even in the first scenario, a normal person could learn everything she needed from the test-prep books. Also, I doubt anyone would celebrate her persistence if it was a story of a person with normal intelligence who threw away so much time and money retaking a test she should have known she wasn't prepared to take again. It would be perverse or at best eccentric, not inspiring.

by jlees 16y ago

pbhjpbhj 16y ago

>Why is the test so inaccessible, and how many others are there like her? The test should ensure that a driver can read read and understand street signs both symbolic and textual ones and respond correctly ... oh yeah, and drive the relevant vehicle. They should also be able to service the car sufficiently to keep it safe - pump tyres, check fluids, know mostly when it needs attention from a mechanic. Not everyone can do all these things hence the test appears "inaccessible".

kijinbear 16y ago

It would be pretty darned difficult to make a standardized test "match" folks who are illiterate or just barely literate, which this Granny seems to have been. BTW, literacy rate in South Korea is around 98% (most of the remainder being old women like Ms. Cha who couldn't get education during colonial times) so I don't think the test would have been too inaccessible to the populace in general.

jacquesm 16y ago

960 - 1 = ?

dkarl 16y ago

“She could read and write words phonetically but she could not understand most of the terminology, such as ‘regulations’ and ‘emergency light,’ ” said Ms. Park, the teacher. I see three possibilities. If these words are as normal in Korean as they are in English, then she failed to learn them because (possibility 1) she was so sheltered she actually had no exposure to basic knowledge required of any competent driver or (possibility 2) she has an intellectual disability that prevents her from learning new words and concepts without a lot of help. In these two cases, you can't blame the test. Possibility three is that the words for used on the test are government legalese that is never used in real life, and she did not understand that learning what they meant was a better strategy than trying to memorize entire sentences from the driving manual. In this case the test is partly at fault, but an intellectual disability would probably still be involved. (Though perhaps you could also blame educational traditions that stress rote learning and glorify hard work as a sufficient solution for any problem.) I guess all three of these scenarios require her to have some kind of intellectual disability, because even in the first scenario, a normal person could learn everything she needed from the test-prep books. Also, I doubt anyone would celebrate her persistence if it was a story of a person with normal intelligence who threw away so much time and money retaking a test she should have known she wasn't prepared to take again. It would be perverse or at best eccentric, not inspiring.