SMBC Comics Forum

Well, we had to take turns. It was inevitable that the bad readers got their chance to show us how badly they were going to fail the FCAT.

We have a grade 10 literacy test. If you pass it, it means you are barely or almost literate. Many people fail. Twice. I hear your SATs are kind of like that too?

I find it irritating to listen to people read out loud because they have no pitch or inflection. It's incredibly unnerving and frustrating.

The SAT is similar in that many people don't do well on it, but it's certainly more important than proving if you're literate. It is used to determine whether or not you'll be accepted to college.

About inflection, that was another pet peeve of mine. Especially when the sentence ended in a question mark or exclamation mark and they read it as a normal statement. Ugh.

Oh the literacy test is important, you can't get a high school diploma in Ontario without it (and without that, no one will accept you into college). But the SATs are actually difficult?

Difficult for the average student, yes. Many people even take out-of-school classes to help them study for it, or they buy books specifically about studying for it. I didn't bother studying and I did fine, but I'm an exception.

If you're really that interested, here are some sample questions.

Ah, your family must be very proud.

R and G are Dead is a great script, and great when performed well. Seen it once by my friends' troupe. It was entertaining for sures. Their Polonius was fantastic. An old guy around 70 who'd never acted before, and was really really dry with his delivery. But against the comic foils of the two leads, it was perfect.

And I agree about people reading without inflection being irritating.

LordRetard wrote:Oh the literacy test is important, you can't get a high school diploma in Ontario without it (and without that, no one will accept you into college). But the SATs are actually difficult?

I found it pretty easy. But many people waste years of high school going to cram school for it. In California we have the CAHSEE, which tests you on the basic ability to read, and your ability to add fractions. It is a sad reflection of the education system that there are thousands of people who fail it after taking it repeatedly.

In the UK, we treat each subject as a separate qualification. You can fail English, but still get a job with maths.

Cirtur wrote:In the UK, we treat each subject as a separate qualification. You can fail English, but still get a job with maths.

That's pretty sweet. It wouldn't've helped me much, though. I was pretty mediocre across the board in high school. More importantly I had no idea what I wanted to get into. My thoughts mostly leaned towards engineering, though I'm very glad I didn't go that route, even though I'm still not sure what I want to do with my life. All that math and science would've killed me for sure.

Here in Manitoba we have no qualifying tests to make sure you are competent in any area. I have never taken a test to confirm that I was literate, could do basic math, etc...

The closest we have is a provincial test in grades 3, 6, 9 and 12 which count towards our final grade. But you can fail all of them and still pass.

I take it you can read and write, unless of course you just have some good voice recognition software.

Is there even any good voice recognition software out there? The one that comes with windows is atrocious.

I tried to get it going and it just failed.

Like into the ground.

Not only does it not understand me most of the time, but if there's even the faintest background noise it doesn't work properly. Plus my throat gets dry from all the talking.