[kirevmaco]

It's just testing and rewarding people who studied for the stupid test, that's all. It also rewards conformist personalities.

It reminds me of undergrad calculus, where you had to memorize how to do dozens of types of integrals. You're not supposed to ask "what does dx mean?" Asking those types of questions will give you a worse grade.

I remember back when I was supposed to "study" for this thing. I asked "if it's an aptitude test, how does it make sense to study for it?" No one could give me a good answer so I decided it was stupid and never studied for it. I thought it was disgusting that so many people were paying for services, books, etc. to specifically prepare for the test even though the whole pretense of the thing is that you're not supposed to be able to do that.

On the other hand, I loved a lot of the AP stuff (chemistry, physics, calculus) since you were rewarded based on understanding the actual content of a subject, a system that made sense. But it's a good thing I didn't think to ask what "dx" meant back then, otherwise I would have probably gotten a worse score.

[ryan93]

Schools do teach what "dx" is. But it is important for upper level engineering and physics to know "dozens" of integrals.

[kirevmaco]

My point was that if you aren't willing to memorize stuff before you understand it, you often do worse in school.