Not well. I could answer a few of the questions but not well enough to gain a scholarship. From the vantage point of 124 years we can see that higher education has become transmuted for the worse. A difference in kind rather than degree.
Blank Paper Time
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I know Latin and a little Greek, but I would fail the Oxford Scholarship Exam miserably.
I’d flunk, but I agree with Albert: “Never memorize anything you can look up.”
And with an IPhone, I’d Ace it.
you have to remember the students who took that exam were educated at schools like Eton and Harrow, had education in the classics–many years of Greek and Latin and were compelled to write daily essays. Not many Americans of 1902 could have done creditably on that exam.
@David WS… I doubt that an iPhone or ChatGPT could do anything with that exam. Siri can’t answer questions about contemporary physics.
About 900 people a year receive baccalaureate degrees in the Classics. Where I used to work, the department was more devoted to historical and archaeological study than the study of language though they did offer language and literature. You’ve got three vectors operating: (1) this sort of material simply isn’t studied anymore at the primary, secondary, or tertiary level; (2) the sliver of people entering higher education is a much larger share of each cohort than it once was and less intelligent; (3) at the primary, secondary, and tertiary level schooling is bloated, inefficient, and silly.
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Henry Fairlie complained many years ago that there was no longer the fund of common allusions there once was – among the elites or among ordinary men.
I would do well on about 3-4 of the questions, be competent in about 2, and miserably firebomb the remaining 3-4.
I have a student who wants to study languages. His goal by age 25 is to be fluent in 5 (other than English) and proficient in 3 others. He will definitely be a unicorn among his peers.
@Bob Kurland, Ph.D., I didn’t say I would simply use an iPhone. There’s no physics I cannot understand.
@David WS I was trying to say the SIri (the Iphone guru) is wofefully inadeque and doesn’t even know about contemporary physics (or other science) Did not mean to imply anything about your lack of knowledge. Chat GPT and other AI cloud agents are somewhat more knowledgeable, but would know very little about classics. And I admire you for being able to understand all physics. There’s lots of physics I don’t understand, particularly the metaphysical string theory, quantum gravity and such.
Hand me the Dunce cap. In which corner shall I sit?
EE &PE I took quantum mech and special relativity as an undergrad.
A bit rusty but I’d figure it out.
(Anything more physics than that isn’t going to be on an entrance exam.)
My daughter challenged me to ask AI an EE question… which I did.. AI got the wrong answer with an “air of superiority”.
Because the question had… three parts.
“Can’t see the forest for the trees”, AI my arsh.
Now Rome’s going to write an encyclical on AI…. (Why? )
Is it because a large format computer searching 2026 years of Teaching will show that: kneeling for Communion, Mary as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix, Marriage as Sacrament between 1 man and 1 woman, and a male Priesthood -are all True?
I’m good on monuments and libraries. And, when, it comes to translations, I could forcefully uphold any Bible version produced and promoted by the USCCB as a truly awful example.
I once had a friendly argument with a fellow military officer about college foreign language requirements. Neither of us persuaded the other, yet it provoked me to consider education requirements. I was ultimately shocked to discover that I felt the only people who needed college degrees were doctors, lawyers, and priests. All other could readily learn requisite skills on the job.
I thus consider we have need to rigorously alter our education requirements. Require everyone begin school at age 5, teach reading, (w)riting, (a)rithmetic, and history. Let them graduate at age 15, get a job, and begin to contribute to society. Let a young man’s family provide for any further education the family may deem appropriate.
I regret that this seems to me the only way we might provoke education to provide something worthwhile.
Let athletics and fine arts be funded privately, by those who value them most.