Thinking society?

Was doing my chemistry homework today and came across this. I know this makes complete sense but it seems like a paradox.

Dry crystals that are hydrated?

Although this is not a error, it reminded me of another paradox. The Ministry of Education wants us to be a "Thinking Society" but I don't think the current education system really encourages this. Here's an example from Geography Elective.

"How does the natural vegetation that you have identified in (a)i adapt itself to the temperature and rainfall shown in Figure 1?[6]"

The natural vegetation in (a)i is the Tropical Monsoon Rainforest (TMR) and the "[6]" indicates the number of marks allocated to the question. Since it is 6 marks, they want 6 adaptations. Problem is, the 6 adaptations are in the leaves, branches, roots, barks, PLANT DIVERSITY and FOREST DENSITY. The last 2 don't really make sense.

Let us start with the word adaptation, wikipedia says this about adaptation "An adaptation is a characteristic of an organism that has been favored by natural selection and increases the fitness of its possessor."

Plant diversity "adaptation" they are talking about is in fact that TMRs have a smaller diversity of plants compared to the Tropical Rainforest. Is this really an adaptation? Isn't it more of a result of the infrequent rain in TMRs and not an adapation? I don't think a TMR is an organism.

Forest Density in TMRs in less than Tropical Rainforests. Really just the same case as the Plant diversity. Is this really an adaptation? Isn't it more of a result of the infrequent rain in TMRs and not an adapation? I don't think a TMR is an organism.

Now, these adaptations did not come from me, but the text book. Written by GEOGRAPHERS. As though having errors in the text book wasn't bad enough, the teachers and examinations board blindly followed it. Thinking Society?

So, back to the poor student that actually thinks and understands, when he/she sees this question, he/she can only think of 4 adaptations because the other 2 aren't really adaptations. He/she knows the teachers want those 2 reasons but refuses to write it down, for if he/she does, wouldn't he have stopped thinking become a mindless, insignificant drone? In the end, he/she scores a maximum of 4 points while other mindless drones who wrote the other 2
"adaptations" scored 6. What have we just done? Believe it or not, we have just rewarded a mindless drone and discouraged those that think from thinking. Again, we must ask, is this how we are going to achieve a thinking society? To get the idea of the severity of this problem, just think about it. How many times have you questioned the textbook?

Here's something from wikipedia about the 'A' level examinations which comes from the same board as the 'O's. Most of Singapore's Junior Colleges use the 'A' levels for an indication of the level of understanding and knoweldge after 12 years of education.

"A third view is that, as schools come under increasing pressure to improve their examination results, pupils are being coached to pass specific examinations, at the expense of a general understanding of their subjects."

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently suggested that one state school in every county should offer the Baccalaureate as an alternative to A-levels. They have humbled themselves. Can't Singapore can follow the footsteps of Britain -The country that hosts the Cambridge Examinations board-? Singapore may have one school offering the International Baccalaurete but it is a private school. Out of sight and out of reach of the general public who will have to sit for 'A's.



On a lighter note, poll on Jam is closed seems like 78% of people don't like Jam (i.e Strawberry, grape, etc...). Interesting.