Are Science and Math Exams Truly Harder Than Arts?

[Shahil]

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2288305,00.html

Science and maths exams are harder than arts subjects, say researchers· Study based on GCSE and A-level grades of 1m pupils
· Call for scaling system to help tutors and employers

Jessica Shepherd
Tuesday July 1, 2008
The Guardian

It's what scientists have always known: the sciences are harder than the arts and the humanities. Now researchers at Durham University have proved it.

They analysed the GCSE and A-level results of almost a million students who sat exams in the summer of 2006, comparing marks in traditional sciences and maths with those in arts and humanities.

There were "substantial differences in the average grades achieved by the same or comparable candidates", they found.

...

Now we got the proof to back up what we already knew :P

 

[HallsofIvy]

Of course, the researchers who proved that were scientists!

 

[Kurdt]

They could have been sociologists in which case they don't count and the findings are totally unbiased.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I think that a major difference might be that you have to actually be good at science and math to get good grades in many of the classes while in the case of a class like art being good at it is not necessary. Unless ofcourse you're going to a good art school.

 

[cristo]

I think that a major difference might be that you have to actually be good at science and math to get good grades in many of the classes while in the case of a class like art being good at it is not necessary. Unless ofcourse you're going to a good art school.

When the article says "the arts" it does not just mean art.. it means subjects like language, literature, poetry as well as visual arts.

 

[Kurdt]

I was going for a cubist feel to Newton's law of gravitation so I cubed the distance instead of squaring it, and although the result is abstract and odd I quite like it.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

When the article says "the arts" it does not just mean art.. it means subjects like language, literature, poetry as well as visual arts.

I know. I was thinking about that and wondering if maybe the subjects that actually are more difficult had their results diluted by the ones that are not so hard. There are arts that require great technical skill but again they may not require that you be good at them to pass. Many subjects in the humanities don't require much more than memorization with a bit of analytical thinking and are possibly open to various interpretations.
The same doesn't go for sciences and maths. You need to not just understand them and memorize rules but you have to actually show that you can do it and do it well.

 

[WarPhalange]

The tests might be harder for us, but humanities are really about essays, not tests.

 

[cristo]

The tests might be harder for us, but humanities are really about essays, not tests.

But you write exams in humanities subjects at GCSE and A level, which include essays.

 

[WarPhalange]

Yeah, do you have a week to do it or just a few hours? That's the difference.

 

[cristo]

Yeah, do you have a week to do it or just a few hours? That's the difference.

So are you trying to say that exams in humanities subjects are not a fair judge of your knowledge of the course? If so, then why are such exams still in wide usage?

 

[OAQfirst]

I wonder what DaVinci would've thought of this.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Heck, art? Try just about any other subject. When in college, I had to work hard to keep up with my math and physics homework. I worked for many hours every night, and sometimes all day on Saturdays and Sundays. But when I had to take an upper division mico-econ class, for example, I aced it with only two days of study for the entire class. Compared to what I used to doing, it was barely more than a coffee break.

It wasn't unusual to work all week on math and physics, and to then do my homework for all other classes in one day.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

One thing that always irked me was the valedictorians - they are almost always humanities majors. That hardly seems fair to the science and engineering students.

 

[Moonbear]

Heck, art? Try just about any other subject. When in college, I had to work hard to keep up with my math and physics homework. I worked for many hours every night, and sometimes all day on Saturdays and Sundays. But when I had to take an upper division mico-econ class, for example, I aced it with only two days of study for the entire class. Compared to what I used to doing, it was barely more than a coffee break.

It wasn't unusual to work all week on math and physics, and to then do my homework for all other classes in one day.

For us, even the credit load was doubled for science majors. Non-science majors only required 36 credits of major coursework, and science majors required 72 hours. We all still had to cover the same core requirements. Several of us who were science majors in a scholar's program had to drop it and lose a scholarship because we absolutely could not fit one more class into our schedules and still hope to graduate on time...we complained about that to the college too, because it seemed unreasonable we had to give up scholarships because we had to take more and harder classes for our majors, and not because of our GPAs.

All the non-major courses I took for core requirements were incredibly easy. So it's not just that sciences are difficult for non-scientists and non-science courses difficult for scientists...those non-science courses really were all very easy. I didn't even study for most of them, just showed up for class, listened to lecture, and gleaned all I needed to pass the exams with high scores.

 

[WarPhalange]

So are you trying to say that exams in humanities subjects are not a fair judge of your knowledge of the course? If so, then why are such exams still in wide usage?

lol

GRE's.

 

[cristo]

lol

GRE's.

Huh?

 

[WarPhalange]

Oh, right, you're not from the US, are you? The GRE's are a horrible way to test physics knowledge. Everybody knows it, yet all the schools in the US require them. Why? Because they can be graded easily.

The physics GRE is 100 questions, multiple choice and you have 3 hours. Meaning it's about 2 minutes per question. Sound familiar? It shouldn't, because I've never heard of anybody taking a test like that in class.

 

[Shahil]

One thing that always irked me was the valedictorians - they are almost always humanities majors. That hardly seems fair to the science and engineering students.

Very true - but then again, as the cliche goes, the scientists and engineers aren't as good with public speaking as the humanities um, people are! It is a generalisation (I particularly enjoy public speaking even though I'm an engineer) but thinking back to the people that graduated in my year, I would very much rather give that job to one of the arts students!

Oh,I showed an art student this article and her reply to me::

So what? The exams are harder but that's just overcompensation for how
stupid the subjects really are. Like architects with small penises who
erect huge buildings. big deal

 

[Alfi]

Guinness World Records lists the Mona Lisa as having the highest insurance value for a painting in history. It was assessed at US$100 million on December 14, 1962, before the painting toured the U.S. for several months. However, the Louvre chose to spend the money that would have been spent on the insurance premium on security instead. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be approximately US$670 million in 2006.

The middle half of all physicists earned between $72,910 and $117,080 in 2006. The lowest-paid 10 percent earned less than $52,070. The highest-paid 10 percent earned more than $143,570.he he he

 

[LightbulbSun]

I'm not sure if this falls under humanities, but try making a living being an author. Those guys are dirt poor, unless you're Stephen King.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I'm not sure if this falls under humanities, but try making a living being an author. Those guys are dirt poor, unless you're Stephen King.

Yeah, most writers only write on the side. Very few are capable of making a living at it and most of them don't do so well.

 

[General_Sax]

The physics GRE is 100 questions, multiple choice and you have 3 hours. Meaning it's about 2 minutes per question. Sound familiar? It shouldn't, because I've never heard of anybody taking a test like that in class.

Really? I took 2 courses in which both the midterm and final was similar to the type of test described.

They were intro physics (SHM, waves, optics, light) and into C++ (included sorting but we didn't learn it as an "object oriented language", not that I know what that really means lol)

So, is it really that strange? Honest opinion, good or bad?

 

[Abraham]

I would like to submit my humble opinion, that maybe sciences are harder, because they're not human inventions.

The arts are human creations, about man, living, philosophies, and such experiences, etc. But sciences are about things that are abstract and truths that exist with or without humans.

There's no literature without humans, but gravitation and quantum mechanics don't depend on humans existing.

So perhaps its because the arts are about "us", that we find it so easy. Like it's part of our psyche to understand things about ourselves.

Science, on the other hand...well, not being centered on us, that's just plain hard(er) to understand.

 

[renz]

^^^ good point. humanity subjects are more relevant (or intuitive) to us.

I never actually thought the humanity subjects themselves are easier than science. But humanity (including social studies and art) classes are a lot easier than science classes.

I don't really care that much about valedictorians. It doesn't matter to my line or work anyway. But one thing that bothers me is that the diploma doesn't state my major. So for someone only looking at this I could have majored in anything else, and it wouldn't make a difference.


and I just noticed this is an old thread.