Looks like Jamie Kennedy pretty much got his inspiration from that book. "Hey, safe kids is a boring show!" Class.
I think you need to look at the fact of this as well; your talking about a small percentage of the population actually applying. 23% to me is telling me that we are really looking for the better of that smaller percentage. If a guy cant do a simple math problem I sure as hell dont want him to hold a gun in any competent manner. Its simple tests to weed out the imbeciles, not saying there are some real bright ones in the military but at least it helps keep the hicks out. (needless to say I am relieved billy-bob-bananna-fo-filly isn't holding an AR-15 )
My boss was a nuclear engineer onboard a fast attack sub before he left the service. Went in with a high school education. From his stories it really doesn't sound like such a mystical and dangerous job. It's a machine, you learn to make it run and how to shut it down. And that's really all "nuclear engineering" is in the services, operation and maintainence. Design and construction are contracted. That's really how it goes for all military "jobs". You go in with an interest and no formal knowledge and learn as you go. They also tend to foster rotations to keep people going to places where they have limited experience to broaden their knowledge.
That's one thing the military does well* is offer training and education opportunities to the troops. It doesn't matter if you're serving in a trench in the middle of nowhere, you have the opportunity to take correspondence courses for college credit and to study for advancement in rank. The really bright ones, regardless of background, will have the opportunity to compete for a slot at Officer Candidate School. Education is also used as an incentive. We often hear about the lucrative re-enlistment bonuses the services offer, but another incentive sometimes offered is the right to go to any school in that service to train for a different job. *or did, I assume they still do
Took the 40 question test. Math was very simple arithmetic, but I liked how it was problem solving. It made you think. Some unit conversions too, like inches to feet and square feet to square yards (many idiots don't comprehend that unit conversion factors also square when units square, 1 yd = 3 ft, 1 yd^2 = 9ft^2) Vocabulary words were just odd. Some unusual ones there that I wouldn't expect to see on a military test. "Kvetch" was one of them. That's a Yiddish word used as slang, not a proper English word. Paragraph comprehension, again very basic. One of the math questions was about a "square box". I lol'ed. Way to fail at writing a test. Did they mean a cubic box? Or is it a two dimensional box? Another asked for "what is the area to the nearest foot?". I didn't realize that a foot was a unit of area. Oh, wait, it isn't. I finished the 40 question test. I got one wrong (definition of "Ephemeral") and the people who wrote the test worded 3 of the questions incorrectly.
One thing that makes this far less scary is that it's 1/4th of the people who take this test that fail it. It's not a mandatory test. The people taking this test and failing it are the ones that want to serve in the military as enlisted soldiers. Hopefully I don't offend anyone here by saying that the people who want to serve in the military as enlisted soldiers are pretty much the bottom of the bucket when it comes to education. Most likely, these people couldn't get anything better. So while 1/4th of the people taking this test failed it, I'd wager a guess that most of the people who didn't take this test would have passed it.
The military has always been a great tool for social mobility; the poorest of the poor can sign up, get a good education (not to mention an excellent CV and references) for free and then mOve on to a better position in life. So a significant part of the people who sign up are the ambitious poor who do not see drug dealing as an appropriate career fast-track. Others sign up because they come from broken or chaotic homes (if not a Home), looking for a sense of family, belonging and order and discipline they never had as children. A small (but not insignificant) number sign up because they like the power, the violence and the kill. They are usually regarded as 'useful idiots' in the army, but special forces take great care to weed these crazies out as the dangerous liabilities they are.
Coincidentally, I was just wondering something the other day. You've mentioned before that you come from a military family, and judging from some past posts you seem to hold some regard for military service. I'm curious if you served at all. If not, what made you choose another career path?
I think that's a bit harsh. many highly qualified young people go into the military for a number of different reasons. For some, it's a desire for adventure, for others a search for acceptance and meaning to their lives. Some do it to help pay for college or to get access to training they couldn't get otherwise, and as Nexxo said, it's a huge boost career wise. For some, no matter how well they do in school, there are simply no opportunities where they live. For many, it's simply that they want to serve their country. When I worked on the boats one of the mates told me one day that "everyone on a boat is running from something". For some it was bad relationships or dead end jobs or being stuck in a boring home town or whatever. I think the same is true for the military.
Was interested in the sample test. Can't be bothered to fill out all the info they want to collect on me. A few years ago I had a few friends in the reserve or guard. After a few seemingly random conversations about the military with them, I received calls and letters from various recruiters. Felt it to be a bit invasive. More than one wanted to stop by my house. Anyways, these results are shocking, but can't say that they're surprising. Could also be skewed and misrepresented for shock appeal. How many test takers are native english speakers, how many are from immigrant families that just came to the USA? Then you also have to ask how some of these students were allowed to graduate high school.
i'm surprised people havent pointed out that the military doesnt just include foot soldiers... there are several divisions where you have to be moderately bright to make it through, like intelligence, pilots, logistics, etc... its not all point and click.
It probably is somewhat harsh, but not completely off the mark. There are a whole bunch of people that are smart enough to pass this test, but chose not to take it because there were better career opportunities. That's not to say that everyone who took this test was an idiot, but to apply statistics from this test to the general public is misleading. I'm not sure how much of a boost it is in terms of career, either. I have a cousin in the Marines, who enlisted right out of high school. Talking to him, the only training he's ever received is on how to kill people. No job skills at all. He's done 3 or 4 tours in Iraq, and is trying to get promoted into special forces or another more elite fighting unit because he can't find any other work he's qualified for. Now, I've known several people that entered the military as an officer after completing a university degree on their own, and it seems like those are the ones that have real opportunities for advancement. They get non-combat jobs involving useful skills, and they get promoted.
Problem I found with education is basically league tables. All schools are interested in is passing exams rather than what you know. I got a C in GCSE French yet could only say a handful of phrases. Everything I said was the verb "to Play" or "to do" in 3 tenses. Learn 5 activities and find a way to fit them in to what was asked. Our teachers advice (which I didn't take cause I wanted to learn a language) was to "prepare the answers before hand, memorise and repeat". Its the same with every other subject, Physics was "If you get this question just use this formula (who cares where it comes from or why its X/Y or Y/X) and write these words somewhere in your answers". Maths was good tho since I was able to get a good understanding and the teachers where brilliant at teaching it and getting you to think. Biology was all memory work too. Nothing is applied knowledge, or requires knowledge. Its all memory work that any monkey could do if he sat down and put his mind to it. "if this is asked this do this" As for the military, where would we be without it? huge Medical and Technological advances have came from it due to its large budget for such projects. Look at blood tranfusion coming from the first world war or the internet. Some bright minds have to be involved behind those innovations. As warfare and training becomes digital some huge advances in software will happen. Look at AI, And augmented Reality advances that have came from that. Dare I mention ARMA and flight sims too? While I don't doubt there are alot of gun ho idiots in the army (quite a few high school friends joined up and thats the perfect way to describe them as well as family members) they have all received an education high school and uni could not. Leadership, diplomacy, mechanical and electronic based engineering, discipline and even medical skills among a few. While I hate the military for what it is, a tool of death, you cannot deny that it has brought progress in alot of areas.
How seriously can one take a test with questions like the following (off the test I took): I found most of the test to be basic knowledge questions ("How many planets in our solar system have rings?", "In an overhead valve system (OHV), what mechanism opens and closes the valves?"), or deliberately confusing questions, with somewhat strange choices for answers (see above). Very few questions were applied knowledge/comprehension style, consisting of mainly "Which of the following does the paragraph above say:", or "Given the following set of shapes, which figure can be made?". Fun test, but not what I would call taxing by any means. Managed to eke out an average score of 83.5% despite having very limited knowledge in the mathematical sections (conversions, algebra, ect). Managed 100% in "Arithmetic Reasoning" though! Having said all that, the test took me well longer than I thought, but what do you expect for 216 questions? Two hours spent taking the military enrolment test for a foreign country on Christmas eve? Fun times... I honestly don't have much to say beyond that, so I'll get my coat...
I would consider that something of a trick question, or at least a question designed to see who was really paying attention in early science classes. Most attention is given to Saturn due to its prominent display of rings, and I find that nobody ever really mentions the ring systems around Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Ask any kid in grade school to identify Saturn, and they'll tell you it's the one with the rings. Jupiter has the big red spot. So the obvious answer to that question is 1, but the real answer I suppose is 4.
Yup, and one has the goofy ring that is perpendicular to the rotation. I wasn't sure what they were going for with it. Saturn has the obvious rings, but I remembered a couple others had rings that weren't readily visible, but that's not something I'd expect an average person to know. Also, Malvolio, there's no correct answer to that question. What is the mass of Cat A? Cat B? What's the strain modulus of the seesaw? What's the maximum weight capacity of the triangle holding it up? What's the friction in the bearing? A is correct if the mass of Cat A is much larger than the mass of Cat B, or the velocity of Cat B is very low such that the force of impact does not exceed the static friction of the bearing. B is correct if the mass of Cats A and B exceeds the maximum weight the triangle can support without collapsing C is correct if the mass of Cat A and B are similar, and the bearing friction is low enough to allow the impact to shift the seesaw D is correct if the mass of Cat A is much smaller than the mass of Cat B, or the velocity of cat B is great enough.
Uranus' rings are perpendicular to its orbit, not its rotation (but I'm sure that's what you meant...). [/PEDANT]
Tbh I reckon Billy Bob who grew up on the farm and played with guns since he was 5 would do a much better job of it than some kid who decided to enlist because he failed his degree as he couldn't let go of Halo long enough to study.
Who would you rather have fighting by your side? A thick kid who's good with a gun, but lacks common sense, or a slightly educated person who's OK with a gun and has some common sense? Joining the army isn't just about being good at shooting stuff.
