The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

PasturesNew

One trend I am noticing more often is that academic papers are appearing in google results, where students' BA/MA/PhD papers are available as PDFs "just for the reading" - I've read a few where their primary sources have been very specific to a tiny area/village that includes swathes of my ancestors. Reading these documents really put a couple of things into perspective:

1/ How the area operated and how it all came about and the years things occurred, rise and decline of an industry.

2/ How even people with access to primary sources who had made a study of one tiny village, including how they inter-bred and kept the area "exclusive" to them, which was pretty much made up of hundreds of my ancestors, couldn't work out "who was who" as everybody had the same name

Maybe I should camp out at an archives and produce a PhD-quality paper on "land ownership in XYZ parish, 1450-1950, and who the heck was shagging who and for which field"

silvercar

There is a local estate agent shop near me here where one of the estate agents can't park a car. She doesn't seem to be able to judge where the back of the car is. So it looks like no concept of anything behind her seat. I have no idea how she passed her test without backing into something?

Many years ago, in the 1980s, you didn't need to be able to park a car to pass your test.

silvercar

If we are talking about grade inflation, it applies to degree grades too. Back in the 1980s, the standard grade was a 2.2, nowadays it's a 2.1.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

Many years ago, in the 1980s, you didn't need to be able to park a car to pass your test.

That made me think (passed 1980)... and I don't remember it being a "thing". I wonder if the "reversing round a corner" would've covered most skills as you needed to get close to the kerb and stay close to it to achieve it... Same skill set really ... bringing the car to a stop, reversing close to a kerb, following a kerb with the back wheel while getting the front straight too, then bending round a corner keeping the front/back pretty much equidistant from the kerb... while being aware of what's behind/in front of you and what's moving in the general vicinity.

PasturesNew

I know somebody with a non-Uni degree from the mid-late 80s. Once they had the degree there was more study involved, then you had to get a 2 year placement ... then you were "fully qualified". They said about 2-3 years ago that they'd never stand a chance these days as all the jobs in the industry were pretty much taken by the children/relations/friends of Directors of firms and Partners/Associates... it's all "who you know"; your "Average Joe" who just happened to have obtained a degree in the relevant subject "anywhere" wouldn't ever get the industry placement they needed to become fully qualified, even if it were a First at a top Uni. They'd just be spat out in the sifting .... "not our sort of people; we don't know their people". While it's always been like that, to some degree, it's more so now as there are fewer jobs being created by the firms - and more choice of "their sort of people" to win them.

Getting qualifications aren't good in many specialist areas if you don't have "the right contacts" ... in short, if your people are not on a PA Index .... you'll just grub around for "any job" and not get into what you wanted to do.

Cakeguts

PasturesNew wrote: »

I bet you score highly on the ASD Scale... I am seeing some traits and behaviours sliding in....

I have my suspicions about that myself. I can't stand anything that might mislead someone. That is why the A level thing upsets me so much. I feel that the universities the government and state schools are selling less able students a lie about A levels and unless you go to a private school you can't find out the truth about them because of the vested interests in the state system. Can I call trading standards about A level grade inflation?



I also have an extra process in my hearing that means I can hear a whole load of stuff that most people can't hear and all sound is LOUD. I remember years ago on an OU summer school there was a machine of some sort in one of the labs that made a really nasty LOUD high pitched humming noise when it was switched on and continuing for all the time it was on. It was extremely unpleasant and when I mentioned how annoying it was everyone else said "what noise?" This was followed by someone say that they had heard someone else say that it made a bit of noise. What I was hearing was not "a bit."

PasturesNew

Cakeguts wrote: »

....
I also have an extra process in my hearing that means I can hear a whole load of stuff that most people can't hear and all sound is LOUD. .... everyone else said "what noise?" ...

I have that, in certain frequencies. It's bl00dy loud, bl00dy annoying - and it HURTS! It's essentially why I can't be around anybody playing with a football within 500 yards (preferably 1000).

Jackmydad

chris_m wrote: »

Left-hand threads can catch people out though.

I remember when I was a Scout leader, one of the latest intake (a very pleasant lad usually) came back for a weekend camp and told me in the most accusing tone he could muster, "You gave us a left-handed gas bottle" :rotfl:

Yes, but that's a "don't know" thing.
I remember buying a tranny van, not being able to shift the nearside wheelnuts, and then remembering that I'd heard somewhere that some vehicles have LH threads on that side. . .

Cakeguts

michaels wrote: »

So this doesn't actually say that exams have got easier, just that someone of the same intelligence would be likely to get 3.5 grades higher in maths in 2007 than they would have done in 1988

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2540628/A-levels-now-two-grades-easier-than-20-years-ago.html

Yes but unless you make them easier you run out of room to inflate and eventually have to award A*s to people who have got zero marks and fail the rest. So you have to make them easier so that more people get higher marks without you having to move the marking boundaries down and off the end of the scale. A* for minus 20% marks anyone?

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

That made me think (passed 1980)... and I don't remember it being a "thing". I wonder if the "reversing round a corner" would've covered most skills as you needed to get close to the kerb and stay close to it to achieve it.

It got me thinking too, so I looked it up.

silvercar wrote: »

Many years ago, in the 1980s, you didn't need to be able to park a car to pass your test.

Less than a year ago you didn't either.

With effect from December 4th 2017, the test ceased to include reversing around a corner or turning around in the road but replaced them with one of 3 possible reversing manoeuvres:

1) Parallel park at the side of the road
2) Park in a bay - either driving in and reversing out, or reversing in and driving out (the examiner will say which)
3) Pull up on the right-hand side of the road, reverse for 2 car lengths and rejoin the traffic