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Before we get too smug, don't let the education majors challenge you to a writing contest :-) A few years after I finished my BS in Comp Sci, I took both the
by Roboprog 12y ago
Before we get too smug, don't let the education majors challenge you to a writing contest :-)
A few years after I finished my BS in Comp Sci, I took both the GRE and the CBEST (California teaching test). The percentile ranking skew between the two populations was interesting.
A 98th percentile ranking in "verbal" in the engineering group only put me at the 50th percentile ranking in writing in the teaching group.
(OTOH, I was at the 99th percentile in math in the teaching group, but I had a reasonably high score at math in the GRE as well)
- streptomycin 12y agoEngineering majors score higher than education majors on the verbal section of the GRE: http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended%20Graduate%20Major.htm http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended...
- cafard 12y agoThe verbal portion of the GRE didn't used to involve writing--I haven't taken it in a long time. But some of what I see written by and for teachers makes me wonder how good they are at writing, and at distinguishing good writing from bad.
- Roboprog 12y agoTrue: the GRE verbal was multiple choice, not actually writing. Closest proxy I could come up with to compare the writing results.
- protonfish 12y agoMay experience is different. During a masters program in education a TA confided that when grading our papers he found that the writing from those with math and science degrees was OK, but they all were competent in their subject matter. The writing quality for English/History majors was all over the place - some of the best and worst. We concluded it was because it is easier to objectively test math and science proficiency. Profs are OK with failing you even if your work really hard.
- throwawaymsft 12y agoIt's much better to be 98/99 or 80/99 percentile than 99/50. Engineers at least understand writing enough not to make facepalm-inducing mistakes like miscalculating the average.
- kevin_thibedeau 12y agoWriting exams are subjectively graded. If you're a liberal arts major you've been indoctrinated into the same system as your graders and are trained to write in a style that they are biased toward. Adding essay questions to standardized entrance exams was a huge mistake I'm glad to have missed.