Textbook Tosh

[finley]

Ah of course - I missed that, straight mistranslation. You're invited over for tea tomorrow, to tell the wife that. She won't listen to me.

Well, thanks for the invite, but mine doesn't listen to me either, so I doubt yours will. All conversations like this end with "can you even speak your own language?"

[PigBloodCake]

Ah of course - I missed that, straight mistranslation. You're invited over for tea tomorrow, to tell the wife that. She won't listen to me.

Well, thanks for the invite, but mine doesn't listen to me either, so I doubt yours will. All conversations like this end with "can you even speak your own language?"

Pigs will definitely grow wings when they start listening to us

[PigBloodCake]

Anyway, had another look at the book, and they've also got "the mouse is up the chair", with a pic of the mouse sitting on the chair. I think they're getting that wrong.

Person A: The mouse is up the chair.

Person B: Whose chair?

A: Mine.

B: Oh, so it's "up yours".

................

I was thinking of a dumbass way to use 'up yours" and you beat me to the punch. Shame on you.

.....

[GuyInTaiwan]

Well, there's "up the duff" also. "Jenny is up the duff because Mike was up Jenny."

[Ducked]

Well, there's "up the duff" also. "Jenny is up the duff because Mike was up Jenny."

Damn! I was going to do that one, but I just got here.

That's what I get for not keeping tabs on my own thread.

[Ducked]

Up town-girl

(Shepherds delight)

[Ducked]

Up the junction

[Ducked]

Well Read 3 Marine Behaviour: Article on the Australian Sea Wasp (A box-jellyfish stylee thing)

C+E questions “The venom has a direct effect on the heart, and, as a result, it causes immediate death to the tissue it contacts”

The effect identified by “as a result” doesn’t follow logically and is probably wrong.

This is a bit more subtle than the Formula 1 example above (from Q Skills for Success 3), though its still bollocks.

I'm never sure whether its worth trying to explain this kind of thing. Ideally, one would, as a critical thinking exercise.

Even more ideally, one would elicit what was wrong with it, but that aint gonna happen, so I'll probably just mention that it doesn't make sense, suggest replacing "tissue" with "prey", (for example), and/or skip it.

[Ducked]

I've never been very convinced that this distinction remotely justifies the importance that many reading textbooks give to it, especially as the authors of at least some of them don't provide a consistent definition that distinguishes them, or if they do, they don't apply it consistently.

Sure,its generally possible to make the distinction, but students find it very difficult, and I doubt it has any particular value.

My current reading text (Well Read 3 OUP) concentrates on this to the exclusion of almost everything else, and its starting to really piss me off.

Heres an example. It would be fair to say I've encountered much worse ones in the past, but I don't have them to hand.

'While the venom of some box jellies is harmless to humans, the venom of others is extremely dangerous. An encounter with one type of box jellyfish - Australia's sea wasp (Chirones fleckeri) - could be fatal. The sea wasp possesses the most potent venom of any marine creature. Therefore, even a slight brush of a mature sea wasp's tentacle against the body can cause heart failure and death within minutes."

What is the main idea and which are supporting details?

(a) The sea wasp's venom is the most potent of any marine creature.
(b) The venom of the sea wasp is dangerous to humans.
(c) A brush with a mature sea wasp tentacle can cause heart failure and death within minutes.
(d) The sea wasps venom could be fatal.

I "correctly" guessed that (b) was the intended MI, but I don't particularly see its superior to (d) and since its implicit in the other supporting details the distinction seems a moot point.

Tosh or not?

This is a widespread textbook phenomenon so I'd be interested to know peoples views.

[Ducked]

"Canned" reading test material that came with the book "Read This 3" from CUP

(Canned test material is of course usually rubbish, but I was short of time and lazy, and used some of it for a small part of my midterm. Mea culpa).

1.About how much will it cost for one night in a space hotel? (a)about $1,000,000 , (b)about $100,000 (c) about $1,000
2.What form of transport will take people to a space hotel? (a) a helicopter (b) a space shuttle ©a jet airplane.
3.About how far away from Earth will space hotels be? (a)30,000 miles (b)620 miles (c)300 miles
4.How often will a space hotel circle the Earth? (a) every 300 minutes (b) every 90 minutes (c) every 45 minutes
5.How often will you see a sunset from a space hotel? (a) every 300 minutes (b) every 90 minutes (c) every 45 minutes.

The according-to-the-reading "correct" answer to 4 is (b), and to 5 is (c). These are of course incompatible so they cannot both be correct.

As an experiment, I gave them a supplementary review question after giving them the "correct" answers on returning the papers.

Two of the facts given in the reading, (which are also the answers to two of the above questions) disagree.They cannot both be correct, so the reading is wrong.

Say which two facts/answers disagree, and explain why. It may help to draw a diagram.

50 1st year "A stream" (4WIW) students. How many do you think managed to identify the conflicting pair of answers?