<p>I’ll go back and give curmudgeon’s Rule of Parenting Number #4. “Kids do best at what kids value.” If a kid values dance more than schoolwork, well…don’t expect a valedictorian. (Again, I know on cc there will be that kid who didn’t try and won the marathon, the Nobel, and a Pulitzer over lunch. But besides those kids, my rule works most of the time. ;))</p>
<p>Using SAT math is not practical. I’m going to make a lot of generalizations here, there are always exceptions, but yeah.</p>
<p>First of all, SAT math is purely school math no matter what they say. It’s NOT an intelligence test. Anyone can study for a few days and go from 500 to 700+. </p>
<p>If you look at tests like AMC/AIME/USAMO/IMO, all the top scores are male. Sure, more and more females are going to those, but they are still the minority by far, and as i said, there are always exceptions. </p>
<p>In my school, the out of the best… oh 100 people at math from all the grades, mabye 2 of them are female. On the other hand, while the best person in my grade at english is a guy, there were a lot more girls who where at the top (a lot more than guys). </p>
<p>From my experience, boys are at the extremes, while girls are in the middle. What do i mean? well, the best students are always guys, however the worst are also always guys. Although not many girls are among the best, very few are among the worst. It seems to me that girls care more about school, and they try A LOT harder. This is why more girls go to college than guys, and why the averages are about the same. Girls are very good at working hard and trying, while boys slack off. However, there are those few boys who work as hard as girls, some even harder, and they achieve more than girls.</p>
<p>People say not many girls try at math/school work etc. because this was a male dominant world and stereotypes say girls shouldn’t be good at math and blah blah blah, but have you wondered how those sterotypes came to be? Why did males dominate females? Could it be that males are just better than females at SOME things?</p>
<p>i hope i didn’t offend anyone… in no way do i think girls are worse than guys or vise versa… i just think girls are good at some things while boys are good at others, that’s all.</p>
<p>QuantMech:</p>
<p>No, you weren’t wrong. I was. Some teams had gender parity, one team (Albania) had more females than males, and even Kuwait managed to send one female!</p>
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<p>Look, no one is saying that’s impossible. That’s why this study was done, to see if such a thing were the case for one topic (math.) The study about math, which is the topic of this thread, concluded that there wasn’t a difference.</p>
<p>But I’ve got to say that I find “males dominated females because males are just better than females at SOME things” to be in extremely poor taste and an example of extremely poor logic. Clearly you said you did not mean to offend, so don’t take this as an accusation. I’m simply trying to show you why you should, in the future, be more careful before making such claims. You’re not only willfully ignoring but, actually, justifying thousands of years of repression by a majority towards a minority. (I’m aware that there are more women than men in the world, but there are also more blacks than whites - and that didn’t stop slavery. I’m using the definiton of majority as 'the group that holds power.) </p>
<p>Your argument could be reworded (with the same implications, logical process, and meaning) to say: “have you wondered how those sterotypes came to be? Why did whites dominate blacks? Could it be that whites are just better than blacks at SOME things?”</p>
<p>I’m not accusing you of racism or anything, because I certainly don’t think that you’d support that phrase. Hopefully you see where your logical flaw was. I’m just using it to illustrate that yes, you can have a productive discussion of the differences between sexes, but that it’s in extremely poor judgement to use historical hardships inflicted by men upon women to justify the biological angle.</p>
<p>kelseyg, that was very well done. Very well done indeed. Hoo-rah!</p>
<p>
This is EXACTLY how it is at my school. And I also don’t think that overall guys are “better” at school-stuff than girls, it just seems that they ARE usually “better” at math and science while the girls easily take LA and humanities stuff [btw, not a rule, just the usual]. I’m the only girl at my school who was invited to math competitions and things like that, and usually the people with the high math grades are guys + me :\ So I’m the lone female math-er at my HS lol.</p>
<p>SAT math does not require any advanced math.</p>
<p>“Uh, no, it wouldn’t be so bad. But did you miss the first post where it turns out that’s not the case?”</p>
<p>Here’s another one. There’s gravity, right? But, what if, there weren’t. Would that be so bad? Maybe it’d be cool."</p>
<p>Um, ya there is plenty of evidence to suggest there ARE differences. Sorry that you’re too blinded by being PC that you can’t see it for yourself.</p>
<p>If you really think men and women are exactly the same, I can’t say anything to change your mind. If, however, you admit there are SOME differences between the sexes, then by definition, each sex will excel over the other at SOME things.</p>
<p>But it is not the math per se, but the experience of having to think about math quickly under somewhat stressful conditions. This is the heart of the many after school math competition, etc. programs.</p>
<p>As per sv2’s link on a contemporaneous thread.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/321/5888/494/DC1/1[/url]”>http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/321/5888/494/DC1/1</a></p>
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Uhhh-huh…so I guess it’s just the caucasian uterus that poisons the math bone, huh? LOL</p>
<p>This is nurture folks. Not nature.</p>
<p>“Tom if you’d be so kind , can you list us a few of those areas where men are biologically superior beings?”</p>
<p>*[edited for courtesy - Mod JEM] *Men are stronger and have better endurance due to more testosterone. How about being better at games like basketball due to being taller? How about being better at fighting? How about academics where men are better at standardized tests?</p>
<p>*[edited for courtesy - Mod JEM] *</p>
<p>By the way, there are things women are better than men at, too I just wasn’t asked to address that subject.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that mathematical talent springs “from nowhere.” Personally, I think it’s a result of thinking hard about interesting problems. There’s no necessary gender monopoly on that. </p>
<p>On Susan4’s earlier post: I’d guess that your D1’s natural talent was also developed by a reasonably good school (or homeschooling), and furthered by the habits of mind that you and your husband encouraged–you mentioned that he is a mathematician. </p>
<p>For what this observation is worth, the Mathematical Association of America has a workshop at this year’s national meeting, on moving students from AIME qualification to USAMO qualification. The organizer wrote that strong students generally seem to be able to qualify for the AIME on their own, but that USAMO qualifiers have been more heavily concentrated in a smaller set of schools. </p>
<p>Since its start-up a few years ago, the Art of Problem Solving (AoPS) has been offering excellent opportunities for students to learn mathematics, regardless of their locale or the mathematical talent–or lack thereof–of their local teachers. Over the next few years, I expect AoPS to have a measurable impact in terms of broadening the competitor pool–aside from just expanding it (for which, thanks, AoPS). I have no connection with AoPS, but encourage anyone who is interested to check it out.</p>
<p>But to return to the topic of Susan4’s earlier post, there must be exceptionally few females among the 4-time USAMO qualifiers. It would be really nice to see more of them reaching Olympiad levels. But right now, each of them still has to be willing to take on the burden of being an exception. (You could be the next Melanie Wood! Or Alison Miller! or Sherry Gong! and inspire the next generation of young women mathematicians! You could be the next Emmy Noether! . . . Oh wait, people called her “der Noether.”) It would be hard to just show up at MOP and be one of the guys, without all the baggage . . . and besides that, a few of the posters here seem to be baggage salesmen offering free samples, metaphorically speaking.</p>
<p>Finally, on the SAT: I referred to it because the gender data are out there and they are available over a long period (probably about 40 years, now, for 12-year-olds). I agree that the AMC12, AIME, and USAMO results are better indicators at the top, but the period covered by readily accessible data is much shorter, to say nothing of the problem of guessing genders from the list of USAMO participants. Despite some improvements in mathematical preparation over the years, the SAT is still a test of a different nature for 12-year-olds than it is for 16-year-olds–there’s a bit more actual problem-solving, for the younger set.</p>
<p>thank you kelseyg for your comment, however it’s too late to edit my post :(</p>
<p>Maybe bringing that up wasn’t the best idea. I’m just saying sterotypes aren’t always completely false.</p>
<p>So far we have strength and endurance. I’ll give you physical strength = greater muscle mass. Endurance? Uh-uh. But it seems you have changed horses. Now you are riding a physical rather than mental steed. Why the change?
And BTW the insult is reported as a TOS violation.</p>
<p>Edit: Your standardized tests argument has already been refuted.</p>
<p>My personal prediction? A very slow shift to approximate gender equality, with a half-life of a generation.</p>
<p>nah… I would score almost as high when i was 12 on SAT math as I would now. the only difference would be that I didn’t learn about slopes, and so I would miss those questions. As long as you learn the material, you’ll know how to do it. </p>
<p>Although i admit learning 16 year old material at 12 is quite impressive, it’s just that with work anyone can do it. However the AMCs and AIMEs aren’t just something where you know the forumulas and you can solve. you actually have to THINK.</p>
<p>that was at quantmech’s post #56</p>
<p>@#58</p>
<p>I predict that girls will still be better at reading and linguistics while boys will still be better than girls at math and sciences. And again, there always are exceptions.</p>
<p>Have you ever watched a little boy and a little girl at play? If you have then you noticed that they play very differently. </p>
<p>A little boy’s play involves toy objects, he uses them to fantasize that he is interacting and manipulating the world around himself. Boys like to play with things.</p>
<p>A little girl’s play involves toy people, she uses them to fantasize that she is interacting and manipulating the people around herself. Girls like to play with people. </p>
<p>One is not better than the other, but the difference is plain.</p>
<p>No one has brought this up yet- this article was written by a far liberal journalist from a liberal organization. Also, the article is full of inconsistencies if you read it closely. Notice the hard data about scores is omitted and the data on the SAT, is discounted?</p>
<p>“And BTW the insult is reported as a TOS violation.”</p>
<p>O no you told mommy on me? </p>
<p>You asked for biological differences, I first gave the ones I thought you were capable of understanding, as you already showed you couldn’t realize them on your own. As far as standardized tests, you’re wrong. Look at the article, SAT scores are 35 points lower on the quant. for females. That is significant. The tests referred to in the article are not national standardized tests, they are the ones mandated by no child left behind. These tests are not standardized and scores between students of different states can’t be compared. The chasm grows with the GRE, and GMAT. You’re just wrong here, if you want to ignore the hard data, then may I suggest a law school future and a feminist activist for your career?</p>
<p>This paper examines male and female graduate school completion rates in … Men had a somewhat higher average GMAT score: 513 compared with 469 for women. …</p>
<p>[ScienceDirect</a> - The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance : Best laid plans: Gender and the MBA completion rates of GMAT registrants](<a href=“http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W5X-4MSR8XT-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=360ab414a2578cc73be0c187110fa2cf]ScienceDirect”>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W5X-4MSR8XT-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=360ab414a2578cc73be0c187110fa2cf)</p>
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<p>And what? A liberal always tells politically correct lies to further their socialist/One-world/Tri-Lateral Commission/Bilderberger agenda? Well, at least we know where you get your ideas.</p>