Monday, April 18, 2016
Look how objective I am.
Why are we proud of stuff we can’t control? Maybe, like me, you’re tall and you feel good about that. Maybe you’re rich, or smart, or have nice shoes. Maybe a team in the town where you live is good at the game they play. It’s all just luck; should you take credit? What about kids? A couple told me their first grader was reading at a fifth grade level. I agreed that it was exciting and pointed out that if this kept up, by the time she was 40 she’d be reading as well as a 44 year old.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Although the young lady's reading skills are advanced, it would appear your math skills are not. As near as I can tell, if a 6 year old reads at the level of an 11 year old and the ratio continues, by the time she is 40 she will read at the level of a 63 year old. Well, 62.857142857142857142857142857143 if you want to be picky.
As always, I apologize for actually reading the rant.
Ahem. I was assuming two things: first, that a 5th grader was 10 years old, and that the difference in reading skills was a simple four-year gap. Your math is correct (I'm assuming. You're right about my skills) if the ratio from the single data point I cited is projected out, but I think my way is better. For instance, if this same imaginary child weighed 7 pounds at birth and 43 pounds in first grade, doing the math my way would lead us to expect she would weigh 233 and two-thirds pounds at the age of 40, which while not optimal for health is not impossible. Projecting the ratio out your way would have her weighing a great deal more, but I don't know how to figure it out. A great deal more, though, I'm pretty sure. Her name is Vivian.
By the way, point 857142857142857142857142857143 of a year is a very short period of time.
Thank you for reading the rant.
Ahem. Ahem. If we use your model, we are assuming that Vivian's annual literary learning rate (or ALLR as I like to call it)is average with a 4 year forward shift. This would require her to possess the reading skills of a 4 year old at birth, pretty remarkable for never having experienced sight. Come to think of it, that notion is rather pleasing. Let's go with it.
By the way. I calculated the 5th grader to be 11 and Vivian to be 6.
Thanks for writing the rant!
And apparently my math skills aren't too good either. The 5th grader should be calculated at 10 years old. That would bring Vivian's reading skills to the 66 2/3 year level at 40.
But what would she weigh?
But also, suppose we have two racing cars and they start at zero, and one accelerates faster but they have the same top speed? If you see what I mean.
Well, in that case Vivian's reading skills at 40 would be that of a 40 year old.
So: If Vivian is six, and the 5th-grader is 10, and those two racing cars leave Newark 10 minutes apart, if car A (which is blue) is going due south, and car B (which is teal) is going north by northwest at the same acceleration, what color is Vivian's parents' house (and it isn't green)?
Vivian's parents (Albert and Monica) have installed white vinyl siding and will never have to paint again! Vivian's ambition is to be the best lady race car driver in Newark when she grows up, but she'll need to lose a lot of weight. Those seats are tiny.
On a related topic, if my younger brother is three when I am six, does it follow that when I reach the age of 62, he will be 31?
When I was six, my sister was just three years old, too! No kidding! How weird is THAT?
He would if you were born on the same day!
Uh, Dave. At 60, she'd weigh 392 pounds. Just sayin'. They say a fish keeps growing until it dies. Maybe, at some point, it just becomes unbearable for one of those huge carp to be alive. "Jeez, when am I gonna die already" Like a pregnant woman who can't wait to pop.
Post a Comment