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I am not coming from a perspective that has inherent insight into this, but this all seems very strange to me. It seems to me that only the top [whatever] perc

by jlgreco 13y ago

I am not coming from a perspective that has inherent insight into this, but this all seems very strange to me. It seems to me that only the top [whatever] percent of a population is going to be able to get into a class of school of their choosing, and only a top [whatever] percent of those admitted to those schools are going to successfully graduate. Now, China's population is unfathomably large, so that means way more people are going to be rejected or fail to graduate. On the other hand, it also means way more people are going to be accepted and graduate. 10x the population should mean 10x the rejected people, but it should also mean 10x the accepted and 10x the graduated, right? I don't really see why a larger population should mean that cheating is incentivized more, unless the real problem is an undersupply (proportionately) of education. Now, if lack of education positions is the real problem, then cheating isn't a solution to that; rampant cheating just changes the equation from "top [whatever] get accepted" to "top [whatever] at cheating get accepted". But do those who don't meet "top [whatever]" in a large population have more incentive to cheat than those who don't meet "top [whatever]" in a small population? I don't see why. The incentives should be the same in either a large or a small population, right?

burntsushi 13y ago
> I don't really see why a larger population should mean that cheating is incentivized more, unless the real problem is an undersupply (proportionately) of education. I interpreted dmoy's comment much differently. I thought the point was that since there are so many people entering Uni, they just don't have the resources to penalize enough people for cheating. The obvious solution is to put people on site and prevent it rather than look for it after-the-fact, but apparently that results in rock throwing protests...
dmoy 13y ago
Sorry, I didn't mean to say that the higher population CAUSES cheating. Just that the insane volume of people applying makes the current system (single exam being 99% of your entrance to Uni) more logistically feasible than a lot of other potential systems. The disadvantage is that you have no other way to prove yourself than a single test score. That's also why you're seeing such outrage, because that single test is going to open (or shut) a lot of doors. (See above comment about O(n), he articulated it way better than me :P)
auctiontheory 13y ago
10x the population should mean 10x the rejected people, but it should also mean 10x the accepted and 10x the graduated, right? I don't know where you got that. The number of seats in "elite" or even "good enough" universities is not a linear function of the national population. In populous but poor countries like China and India and Bangladesh, there is much less educational opportunity than there are smart people.

by jlgreco 13y ago

burntsushi 13y ago

> I don't really see why a larger population should mean that cheating is incentivized more, unless the real problem is an undersupply (proportionately) of education. I interpreted dmoy's comment much differently. I thought the point was that since there are so many people entering Uni, they just don't have the resources to penalize enough people for cheating. The obvious solution is to put people on site and prevent it rather than look for it after-the-fact, but apparently that results in rock throwing protests...

dmoy 13y ago

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that the higher population CAUSES cheating. Just that the insane volume of people applying makes the current system (single exam being 99% of your entrance to Uni) more logistically feasible than a lot of other potential systems. The disadvantage is that you have no other way to prove yourself than a single test score. That's also why you're seeing such outrage, because that single test is going to open (or shut) a lot of doors. (See above comment about O(n), he articulated it way better than me :P)

auctiontheory 13y ago

10x the population should mean 10x the rejected people, but it should also mean 10x the accepted and 10x the graduated, right? I don't know where you got that. The number of seats in "elite" or even "good enough" universities is not a linear function of the national population. In populous but poor countries like China and India and Bangladesh, there is much less educational opportunity than there are smart people.