Looking for work, one gets in touch with why so many people are unemployed. Today, I took a basic skills test. For typing, we had to type a famous passage from the Declaration of Independence. I thought I was going to like the place, until it occurred to me that the passage was probably selected for its obscurity; it would be unfair to use a passage from, say, a Harry Potter book, with which some in the room may have already been familiar.
More distressing was the analogy section. The questions were not like the old-fashioned ones; e.g., black is to white as tall is to (a) short (b) fat (c) red (d) green. They were more like envelope is to airplane as when is to (a) about (b) before (c) again (d) three. I am almost certain, after reading the evaluation, the objective was to see how well people functioned with bad logic. In other words, the successful candidate should know when is isn’t is. It is but an extension of the philosophy steering the perpetual shortage of math and science teachers in public schools.
