Wednesday, June 20, 2007 AD One of My Fondest Wishes I'd love to see a reading comprehension test that everyone must take before being permitted to discuss anything online. Along with their names and, for Christians, their church affiliations, all forum/blog/etc. participants would be required to post their reading comprehension scores. That way we'd be able to discern the organically, innocently unintelligent from the willfully, culpably stupid. It would also help discern the humble, who would recognize their limitations, from the arrogant, who would not.
This could actually work in a limited setting. Someone could set up a test as part of the registration process for a site. With a sophisticated testing instrument, it could even be specialized to show where the individual's weaknesses lie -- wrongly discerning motives, failing to follow well-reasoned arguments, misunderstanding metaphors, etc.
Speaking of misunderstanding metaphors, here's my favorite example of such: A woman I used to work with occasionally taught theater courses at a local college. In one class session, a pair of students were performing a brief scene depicting an argument between two business partners. Only they were sexying it up in a way that didn't fit the script at all. My colleague had to interrupt them and ask what in the world they were doing. "Well," said the young idiette, "my line here says, 'We're in bed together now, mister!'" Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/20/2007 07:44:00 PM
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