The Grey Literature – Page 15 – The Grey Literature

Cheating on the MCAT

Recently, two men in BC were caught cheating on the MCAT.

I was discussing this with a friend of mine, who was mainly shocked because “they could’ve got away with it if they only added maybe two more levels of sophistication: Not letting the tutors work together, and doing OCR on the text in the image.”

I have a pet conspiracy theory that for the most part, it is the best cheaters who get into medical school. Maybe that’s just me being jaded, and maybe it’s stories like this, combined with personally knowing some people who not only cheated in their undergrad, but bragged about it and were admitted to medical school.

My friend’s response was that my suspicion sounded plausible, but that “not everyone can get in [to medical school] … and cheating may not be the cause, but there is certainly something wrong with the system.”

Of course not everyone can get in. The sizes of medical school cohorts have been artificially suppressed. The doctor shortage is not an accident. We’re short of doctors in Canada as a matter of public policy, not because factors outside of our control have made it so.

In many ways, our current medical system has been engineered to contain the optimal conditions for encouraging cheating.

First off, the stakes for getting into medical school are very high. Doctors are paid extremely well, and within the medical community (and among people generally) they are revered as nearly godlike.

Not only that, but the consequences for failure to get into medical school can be devastating. Entire university programmes are geared toward prep for med school—there is a huge investment that someone has to make even before a student can even be considered for admission.

By the time someone has got to the point of writing the MCAT, she has invested an amount of money in the five-figure range. All her friends and family know that this is where she’s headed. If she doesn’t make it, she loses all her sunk costs, she loses face and she might also have to deal with the pressure of parents’ expectations, either because they themselves are in medicine or because they helped to finance her education.

The slightest error or even a doubt in the mind of a student, a bad mark or a comment from a well-meaning parent might be enough, in the face of all these pressures to make an otherwise good student cheat.

And as much as professors like to say that universities are tough on cheaters, they’re not. I know from a few personal experiences as a TA that even in schools like McGill, nothing at all is done about academic offenses, even when students are caught cheating red-handed.

So, we have a huge potential payoff, limited numbers of people who can cash in, terrible consequences for failure and we train students not to fear the consequences of cheating.

I don’t know why we’re all acting surprised at this.

Little herbs in my apartment

Here is a photo of some little herbs that are growing on the windowsills of my apartment. This is either tarragon or lemon basil.

There’s also cilantro and chives.

Another tip jar illustration

I’ve been visiting the Java U more frequently. This is because I’m hoping to finish my thesis soon, and sometimes I need to leave my apartment to work. I can usually work fine at home, but every once in a while I just need to get out of the house.

Quirks and Quarks Roadshow in Montréal

This Wednesday night, I went to the Quirks and Quarks roadshow at Concordia University here in Montréal. It was their question-and-answer programme, so they had scientists answer listeners’ questions. Questions prepared in advance, that is. One wasn’t allowed to stand up an ask a random question. It was a very pleasant evening. I actually got to see what Bob McDonald looks like (that was weird—he’s supposed to be a bodiless radio personality), the questions were interesting and the scientists were entertaining.

I brought my towel, because it was May 25. You would have thought that an event like that (a radio recording of something aimed at über-geeks) would have brought out more people with towels, but nope. You’d be wrong.

I left to get some food because I was hungry after the recording, but I was strongly tempted to stay and heckle Bob McDonald for one of the questions.

One of the listeners asked how it is that we know that what he sees as red is the same thing as what anyone else sees as red. This is a classic problem in philosophy. It is a problem of philosophy of mind, and one that touches on issues of qualia, naturalism, the hard problem of experience, and our phenomenal experience of the world as distinct from our brains’ and our eyes’ mechanism for discerning colour.

I was excited when I heard the question.

Then they had an ophthalmologist answer the question. She totally missed the point! She did not answer the question. She talked about rods and cones. She talked about optic nerves. Those things are interesting in their own right, but you can’t use them to prove anything about whether my phenomenal experience of the colour red is the same as yours.

Bob McDonald: Don’t bring in a scientist to do a philosopher’s job! I think I’ll email Paul Kennedy (host of CBC’s Ideas) and tell him that you’re encroaching on his territory!

I’m glad I went though. They also had free cookies. Well, they were unguarded cookies. I assumed they were free.

If you want to hear this broadcast, it will be on CBC Radio 1 at 12h on Saturday afternoon.

New Bixi station at station Snowdon

I remember remarking to a number of friends last summer that the only thing keeping me from getting a Bixi key was the fact that there were no Bixi stations anywhere near me.

I checked. A couple times.

I really wanted the whole Bixi thing to work out for me.

I used to love riding my bike when I was in high school (until my bike was stolen, that is). It was perfect for getting around in Stratford. I could be anywhere in the city within a half hour. The fact that my high school bike was stolen is probably what’s kept me from getting a bike here. If I couldn’t even prevent a bike from being stolen in Stratford (pop. 30,000), what chance do I have living in Montréal (pop. 3 million). I didn’t really want to have to worry about locking my bike up, and dealing with it when the weather’s bad. I mean, I live on the 4th floor of a building with no elevator. I don’t want to have to haul my bike up all those stairs. Not even once.

That said, I do like bikes as a mode of transportation. When I lived in China I had a great bike. It was gigantic. I could see over everyone’s head.

I like the exercise and the convenience. I like that parking a bike is easier than parking a car.

Having a bixi pass is even better than owning a bike. It’s $80 for the year, and you get as much use of the bikes as you like, for 45 mins at a time. I don’t have to worry about anyone stealing my bike. I don’t have to worry about maintaining a bike. I don’t even have to think about what kind of bike I want.

At long last, last week, they installed a Bixi station across the street from me. The only thing that was keeping me from getting a Bixi pass was the lack of Bixi stations near me, and that is no longer an issue. So I ordered a Bixi key. I’ll have to get a helmet now.

The Bonhomme Theme Song

Bonhomme Bonhomme, qu'est-ce que tu fais?

Do you remember learning about the Carnaval de Québec in French class?

There’s a particular song that they used to teach us during the unit on the Carnaval. It’s Bonhomme’s theme song, I guess. When I went to Québec this winter, there was a marching band that followed Bonhomme around playing it.

I used to think that the lyrics were, “Bonhomme Bonhomme qu’est-ce que tu fais? Bonhomme Bonhomme qu’est-ce que tu fais? Je vais jouer au violon! Je vais jouer au violon! …”

Translated to English, this means, “Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing? Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing? I’m gonna play the violin. I’m gonna play the violin.”

Turns out, according to a native French-speaker, that is not only incorrect, but also very creepy.

That it was creepy was not at all surprising. I mean, look at him. And I suppose, given the state of French instruction in Ontario, it shouldn’t be too surprising that I got it wrong.

Makes sense to me though. “Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing? Bonhomme Bonhomme, what are you doing?”

Surprisingly funny business names: Nettoyeur Clean-Marie

I’ve walked past this storefront countless times in the past two years, but it wasn’t until about a week ago that I got the joke. The major street that runs through my neighbourhood is called “Chemin Queen-Marie.” The laundry place is called “Nettoyeur Clean-Marie.”

These people are now my heroes. This is the greatest thing I’ve heard since my mother defined the olympic luge as “when you don’t winge.”

Homographic homophonic antonyms

I first started thinking about this a while back when I saw a Dinosaur Comic on this subject.

Homographic homophonic antonyms are words that are spelled the same and pronounced the same but have opposite meanings.

The example in the attached comic is “dust,” but a quick Google search reveals others like “weather,” (enduring something or eroding something). I’ve found that most of the examples are kind of contrived, though.

“Out”—as in “the stars are out” vs “turn out the lights”—I guess, but that’s kind of stretching it.
“Fast”—as in “to run fast” vs “to hold fast”—ehh … I guess.

I think the reason I don’t like these is because they’re different parts of speech.

I thought of one this week that works pretty well, although I’m not sure if it counts, since it’s two words—”lucked out.” I’ve heard it used to mean both experiencing something fortunate or something unfortunate.

“Wow! You caught the ball at the baseball game! You really lucked out!” vs “They didn’t have any left by the time you got there? You really lucked out.”

No conventional way to get to space from North America

Yesterday was the last launch of the space shuttle Endeavour. This is significant because after the space shuttle programme ends, there will be no conventional way to leave the planet from North America. By “conventional way to get to leave the planet,” I mean things like rockets and space shuttles. Of course I can’t rule out, a priori, the possibility of things like inter-dimensional portals, unguarded Tardises or magic wardrobes.

I believe the date for the last planned flight of Atlantis is June 28th, so if you really need to get off the planet and you don’t want to book a seat on a Soyuz capsule (and you don’t have access to a non-conventional method of leaving the planet), this is the way to go. That said, the shuttles will be sent to museums after they retire, so you might try hijacking one of them if you are really desperate.

In related news, it turns out that Gliese 581g still probably might not exist maybe, but Gliese 581d might have liquid water.

“This discovery is important because it’s the first time climate modellers have proved that the planet is potentially habitable, and all observers agree that the exoplanet exists.” (Dr Wordsworth, a member of the team from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris)

Plurals for hippopotamus and octopus

It is a popular and well-known fact that the correct plural for “octopus” is not “octopi,” but “octopuses” or “octopodes.” This is because the word “octopus” is Greek in origin, not Latin, and the Greek word for the word “pos” (foot) is “podes.”

Here’s my question: If it is incorrect to pluralise “octopus” as “octopi,” then why is it okay to pluralise “hippopotamus” as “hippopotami?” The OED says that this is an acceptable plural.

The word “hippopotamus” is also Greek in origin. It comes from “hippos ho potamios.” In Greek, “hippos” means “horse,” and “potamos” means “river.” The plural of “hippos” is “hippoi,” as I recall.

So shouldn’t the plural be “hippoipotamus” or maybe “hippopotamoi?”