In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

Len Over 21 wrote:
In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

N2EY wrote:

Mike Coslo wrote in message

...

1. Most everything is done that way today.

Doesn't make it right!

Make a question pool large enough, and there is no problem.

Sure there is.

I dunno, Jim. I can read a book, or I can look at a question pool. It's

If the New ham radio tests are different than what Rev. Jim took, they
are WRONG. :-)


all the same to me. If you make questions up, you have to have a
reference for them someplace. Is it in a book? fine, study the book
then. Is it a question pool? Fine also.

Rote memorization? Seriously if anyone rote memorizes the General and
Extra tests, they are very intelligent and very stupid at the same time.
And they will have a few curves thrown at them at test time.

Mike, the Regulations on privatized testing always specified a
MINIMUM of ten questions for every required question on a test,
amateur or commercial.

Well there we go! Some 800 questions (maybe more) are in the present
Extra pool. I just did a BOE calculation from a QP PDF (what the world
needs is more acronyms, eh?)

"Back of the Envelope" calculation from a "Question Pool" "Portable
Document Format" (Adobe) file. :-)

I've got no problems with acronyms, Mike. :-)

Has the Extra QP set increased in size?


The test question pools were generated for the least amount of
lawful effort. For amateur tests the VEC QPC is responsible.

The amateur QP could have a hundred times the required questions
and the total would defeat all the "charges" of "not right" just from
the immensity of a memorization effort. [for all but the eidetic]

Increasing the QP size is perfectly legal under the law. :-)

No comment?

It's been perfectly legal to make the QP much larger than 10 times.
Since at least 1997...when I got the first access of all bound volumes
of Title 47 (five total). Everyone seems to think that 10 times the
required number is all that can be done... :-)


Otherwise the new ham is cheating and isn't as good as the old ham. 8^)

(I just recently had to listen to an old timer in person on a tirade
about the worthless new hams - again.)

Why did you have to listen? I find turning on my heel and walking away
does wonders. Or, looking the ranter straight in the eye and saying,
"You're just wrong...." (lookit how the oldest ranter here on rrap
reacts to being told he's wrong - which he often is....)

Well, it wasn't a case where I could or should have turned away. I
supposed I could have kicked the person out, but I also needed the help
he was giving on a task. Real life has a habit of modifying our
behavior. Plus ut wasn't a personal attack. Most hams I know think I'm a
relative old timer. But its still irritating.

It's not a question of longevity with Rev. Jim. He Is Right and won't
accept anything contrary to His Sacred Vision. :-)

It boils down to the OFs elevating themselves far out of reality on
"how good they were/are" in the way of the Sacred Olde Tests. If
They did it, it is "right." If it isn't done as They did it, it is
"wrong."

That's the bottom line in all of these test issues. :-)

Yes, truly. :-)

These OFs, just like MARS, "IS ham radio!" Hi, hi.

Hams - old and new - didn't change the exam procedures. Neither did
ARRL, NCI, NCVEC or any other ham group. FCC did, because it saved
them resources.

We aren't going to a system other than multiple-choice
published-Q&A-pool exams in the foreseeable future. Just not gonna
happen.

Just a thought here... If we were to say, go to a book oriented
reference for the tests, I can assure you that it would be no better
than the pool based system. Thousands and thousands of college students
prove this on a daily basis, pulling all-nighters, cramming to take
their tests. All the crammed knowledge is placed in shirt term memory,
to quickly fade after the test is over.

Mike, amateur radio is "different." It is different because the OF's
tests were the "correct way" to do it. :-)

Never mind that multiple-choice testing is accepted nearly
everywhere else (even done in the Sacred Olde Tests) by
academics and government agencies.

Amateur radio is not a hobby. It is much, much more that that to
the OFs. It is a "service." It has "unchangeable" rules that must be
kept always and forever the same lest it become "incorrect." :-)

Well, I *do* get pretty excited over it, and am having a lot of fun.

That's the object of a hobby, isn't it?

That's NOT what I hear from the "professional amateurs" in here... :-)

To them is IS a lifestyle, a "service," a "corps," and all who do not
think like them are roundly denigrated as sexual perverts or un-
patriotic or "hating the entire hobby" and "always being wrong."


Another poster has apparently just learned that COLEMs (the
commercial test givers) "also have question pools!" Amazing.
It's been that way since privatized testing began. But, it was just
noticed! [anyone can look in the first bound volume of Title 47 and
see the commercial license requirements except nothing about
that or the three middle volumes are mentioned much in ham
radio places...that has "nothing to do with hamme raddio!" yell the
purists...:-) ]

At Barnes and Noble the other day I saw an electrician licensing
question pool. Seems what they do is important and they need to know
what they are doing.

"Electricians get into other people's shorts." - anon. tagline

Residential electric power wiring is rather straightforward, established,
and standardized. By most local government codes. It IS important
since faulty wiring can lead to destruction of an expensive residence
and, in apartments and condos, loss of many other units.

Electricians are professionals. They aren't amateurs. They don't
belong to a noble "service" to the country, etc., etc., etc. :-)


The anti-public-question-pool purists don't have much of validity
in their "memorization" charges...but it's about the only one they
can come up with...so they must push and push on that to justify
their public words. :-)

BTW, that surprise I noted for anyone that *was* stupid enough to rote
memorize the Extra pool is that the ABCD order of the answers is
sometimes switched. That would almost certainly throw the person off
balance if they didn't actually know the material.

It is NOT good mnemoics practice to do memorization that way, by
abstract relationships of letters to known questions.

I suppose it can be done, but the effort is much, much greater to
achieve any sort of accuracy in recall.

On the other hand, if the method achieves the success of being given
the High Prize of a ham license, then they are One Of You. :-)

Such meaningless memorization is only slightly behind the blind,
unswerving loyalty to the Church of St. Hiram in Newington, isn't it?

The blind belief that morsemanship is the ultimate skill achievement
in radio communications of this new millennium seems to be one of
the dumb and dumber aspects of modern U.S. radio amateurism.
Even dumber is that a morse-based NTS is somehow a "backbone"
of national emergency communications...or that on-off keyed morse
code "gets through when nothing else does."

LHA / WMD