Posted by alexandra_k on November 16, 2014, at 14:59:55
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 15, 2014, at 17:11:57
and the thing i've almost purposely been putting out of my mind... i need to sit the UMAT. everybody does. around about june or july.
i should have sat it this year for the practice. i really had been putting it out of my mind...
it has a 'critical reasoning' section... which has some statistics. you need to know things like 'you can't make inferences about absolute numbers or proportions when you are only given percentage information'. and sometimes background knowledge assists (e.g., questions on phototaxis and the like and inferring what is going on from where the microbes migrated to in the picture of them in their dish)... and othertimes it interferes (where subject specific knowledge or even general knowledge or even common-sense goes beyond the information on the page). i need to learn how critical reasoning / logic is going to play along... are they going to interpret language the way philosophers do? e.g., if they say 'people' do we read that as 'all people' or 'some people' or 'only some people' or 'most people' or 'not all people' and which of those do they consider equivalent etc... i need to figure... is it helpful to draw venn diagrams or diagram logic structure? (this really does seem to be more math than critical reasoning to me)
it has a theory of mind section. partly it is about knowlege of synonyms. it might say that someone is 'irritated' and then 'anger' appears on your list. so a test of english language proficiency. partly it is about incorporating information and assuming something like rationality and good intent. e.g., the fact that someone did a prenatal course is supposed to establish that she is knowledgeable and responsible and well dispositioned toward the pregnancy. how nurses are likely to feel is how one would feel if one were taking all of the above into account with perfect rationality, and so on... i think... it is more how people would feel in some slightly formal slightly literary novel than how the masses would likely feel when they are sick or hormonal or sleepy angry lonely or tired... but... whatever... it seems learnable, which is good...
* actually... i know how it seems... it seems like some of the 'worked through' examples a certain author used when i was reading his stuff on emotions. when higher order (hence fairly rationally controlled) emotions were used 'strategically' as a communication / manipulation strategy. not as an expression of emotional intensity but as a way of making it likely that others will act in ways you want them to. Machiavelli emotions, i think he called them. heh.
it has a math section which they reckon is about pattern recognition. next one in a sequence or arrange the 5 into a sequence and pick the middle or whatever. you are meant to use the simplest rule possible and i think there is even a higher order rule about what constitutes simplicity... addition is simpler than multiplication, for example. the sequences are weird... there are different elements and you need to follow them about. weird things can happen. one of them can cover up others. people say that this is the easiest section to improve on with study... i guess especially if you simply can't see how to do any of them initially... and then you learn some strategy rules. even knowing that each element is in fact guided by a rule (and some clues as to what those rules might be e.g., +1, +1, +1 or +1, +2, +3 or +1, -1, +1, -1 is a considerable help to me (this really is maths - right?) but simple maths... simple once you know the rule, maths...
i guess the idea is to think of it as being a lot like chemistry... lots of little skills / tricky tricks. impossible if you don't know... but really easy once you know how. and so the thing to do is to take my time getting the right answer with the practice sets. and then once i can actually get the right answer to most of them i can worry about picking up the pace. i think that is the key, really. there is considerable time pressure. but if i feel too anxious my response is to freeze / output garbage for a time. and so... i really will need to practice pacing... so i don't waste time garbage skimming (not gaining any useful information) ... it is a tricky thing... i should have taken it this year DAMMIT.
it is mostly about learning to think the way they do. the theory of mind test isn't in grasping how people are 'mostly likely' to think with respect to the 'most likely' demographic. not at all. my theory of mind has changed significantly over the past few years as i've interacted more with non-university / non-academic people. their mentality is quite different, i really do believe. and of course people say one thing... and mean / believe / do another. but none of that matters for the super-sophisticated theory of mind test. and of course the written theory of mind test has applicability back to the real world - right? i mean... the adults with autism... they can't learn the 'right' answer to the sally-anne task - right?i am lucky that this university only makes the UMAT worth 15% of their selection procedure. australian universities take the test much much MUCH more seriously... for us... you have to do one of the two 8 paper years. you have to get a B+ average across those 8 papers in order to apply. then candidates are ranked on the basis of their grades for the 4 papers that are overlapping / common to both pathways. they offer 2x as many interviews as they have available places. that is where people are saying that you need more like a 7.75 to get an interview... but admissions won't say any more because it varies from year to year... and then... candidates are ranked where GPA on the overlapping 4 is worth 60%, interview is worth 25%, UMAT is worth 15%. and places are offered...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20141012/msgs/1073527.html