> On Aug 26, 2016, at 17:21, Thaths <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 4:39 PM WordPsmith <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Intrigued by the phrase "second-hand nature of knowledge." Can any >> knowledge be grouped into first- and second-hand? > > > Sure, why not? Isn't there theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge? > Isn't there a difference between knowing, for example, how baseball is > played and actually playing it?
But for most of us, there's a limitation to how much practical knowledge we can gain. I certainly couldn't play baseball in India, for instance. So the second-best thing for a sports buff is really the only thing -- to follow the sport from afar. Sports buffs frequently follow sports they have never played. There wouldn't be a fan base for Formula One at all otherwise! :-) The Bell Centennial example was provided to demonstrate the logic of quizzing in India, not as a way of exemplifying the content. There are many, many questions that acknowledge the practical experiences of Indian quizzers - and there are many that aren't also. I don't think the latter is a problem, particularly. There are plenty of history questions, for instance -- and it's difficult to have practical experience of that, after all. > > >> Surely we all read *about* distant lands, for example, without visiting >> them. Would that be considered second-hand and therefore a "lesser" form of >> knowledge? > > I did not mean to categorize one form of knowledge as being lesser than > another. I was wondering why the questions could not be about actual > experiences (or encounters) that an Indian quizzer is likelier to have had. > > BTW, I was a quizzer as well in my teens and tweens. And like many Indians > of that age in that time, I had more knowledge than experience. I guess > teens and tweens are, by definition, not very experienced. > > Thaths > > >> I'd agree with you if the question asked quizzers to name the font: Bell >> Centennial. What the question does, though, is give the name and ask people >> to work out its purpose, based on those attributes. Those attributes surely >> are universal -- we've all seen phone directories -- and therefore >> first-hand. And the processes of logic expected to work out the purpose are >> also, similarly, universal and first-hand. > > > > >> >>> On Aug 26, 2016, at 15:12, Thaths <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Quizzing is a common trait among Silklisters. Here is a piece by fellow >>> Silklister Samanth on the differences between Indian quizzing and its >>> American and European cousins. >>> >>> I have found the second-hand nature of the knowledge being rewarded in >>> Indian quizzing circles to be strange. Take Samanth's illustrative sample >>> in the article below. Why the users of Indian Telephones and Telegraph >>> were rewarded >>> for knowing the name of the font used by AT&T to print telephone >>> directories never made much sense to me. Many of the quizzers would have >>> never touched an AT&T telephone, let alone thumbed through a telephone >>> directory published by Ma Bell. >>> >>> Perhaps there is a bit of aspiration involved in knowing the facts to >> these >>> questions: I'd like to lead a life where AT&T telephones and directories >>> are commonplace in my life. >>> >>> Thaths >>> >>> PS: I also have to disagree with Samanth's grouping of American and >>> European quizzing into one bucket. I have found British quizzing (as >>> exemplified by pub quizzes) to be on par with Indian quizzing in terms of >>> its inventive questions. >> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/an-organic-model-of-knowledge/article8849921.ece >>> >>> An organic model of knowledgeSAMANTH SUBRAMANIAN >>> COMMENT >>> < >> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/an-organic-model-of-knowledge/article8849921.ece#comments >>> >>> (1) · PRINT >>> < >> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/an-organic-model-of-knowledge/article8849921.ece?css=print >>> >>> · T+ >>> < >> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/an-organic-model-of-knowledge/article8849921.ece# >>> >>> >>> inShare >>> < >> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/an-organic-model-of-knowledge/article8849921.ece# >>> >>> 9 >>> < >> http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/an-organic-model-of-knowledge/article8849921.ece# >>> >>> [image: Drained of colour: John F Kennedy was a fascinating and colourful >>> man, by all accounts. And yet, an American quiz could only summon up the >>> most uninspiring facts about him.] >>> The Hindu ArchivesDrained of colour: John F Kennedy was a fascinating and >>> colourful man, by all accounts. And yet, an American quiz could only >> summon >>> up the most uninspiring facts about him. >>> >>> India, despite having a dry and uninventive education system, has a much >>> more creative and enjoyable quizzing culture than the US >>> >>> A month into my undergraduate degree, when I was still somewhat unmoored >> in >>> my strange new habitat — a small, white college town in the middle of an >>> enormous US state — I discovered the university’s Quiz Bowl Club. The >> club >>> convened at 8 pm every Monday and Thursday, in a classroom reserved for >> the >>> purpose. You brought along dinner — your sandwich or your $2 slice of >> pizza >>> — and made an evening of it. The first time I went, I was immediately at >>> home. Here were my people, the geeks and the social misfits and the >>> inordinately curious, the lovers of bad puns and obscure allusions, the >>> devotees of minutiae. I felt like a Jew of the Diaspora who had finally >>> made aliyah. >>> >>> Within the first 15 minutes, I realised how different American quizzing >>> was. Here, a question was simply an absence of a fact, a sheaf of data >>> points that ended in a bald query for information. “This politician, >> from a >>> prominent New England family, served in World War II and became a Senator >>> in 1952. He participated in the first televised presidential debate in >>> 1960, appearing opposite Richard Nixon. For 10 points, name America’s >> only >>> Roman Catholic president.” The questions might have been drawn from >>> textbooks. Indeed, I often had to recall the physics or chemistry lessons >>> I’d crunched into my head by rote only the previous year, when I was >>> finishing school in Chennai. What was going on? I wondered. Why was >>> American quizzing — and even European quizzing, as I later found — such a >>> dust-dry, uninventive affair, so different from quizzing in India? >>> >>> The paradox still intrigues me. In India, it is the education that is dry >>> and uninventive, a dense and endless parade of facts that must be >> memorised >>> and redelivered during examinations. Recall is everything. Yet our >> quizzing >>> has evolved, over the last couple of decades, to be playful, and rich and >>> creative. No Indian quizmaster (outside, I will cheekily say, of Kolkata) >>> will set questions that rely purely upon recall. (What is the capital of >>> Ghana? Who founded Nike?) Instead, each question is a miniature puzzle, >> to >>> be approached and unlocked in myriad ways. Even the best quizzers do not >>> know cold most of the correct answers they give; instead, they work these >>> answers out, applying knowledge but also logic, teamwork and instinct. >>> Clues are scattered, like breadcrumbs, all over a question, just enough >> to >>> lead you home but insufficient to give the game away altogether. There is >>> often some sly wordplay. Quizzes routinely feature audio, visuals and >>> video; the Son of Lumiere movie quiz, conducted every year by the >> Karnataka >>> Quiz Association and including nearly 120 minutes of expertly clipped >> video >>> embedded into a PowerPoint deck, is arguably the most slickly produced >> quiz >>> on Earth. >>> >>> An illustration of an Indian quiz question: The font Bell Centennial was >>> commissioned in the late 1970s, with the objective of fitting more >>> characters into a line without loss of legibility, reducing the need for >>> abbreviations and two-line entries. It replaced an earlier font, which >> was >>> plagued by the problem of spreading ink, made worse by the quality of the >>> paper. Where would we have seen Bell Centennial in the 1980s and 1990s, >> and >>> increasingly less since then? Now, a graphic designer might well know the >>> name of the font, but it takes much less specialised wisdom to recall >> that >>> AT&T was once part of the Bell phone network, or to think about where we >>> might encounter crunched text on poor paper, or to recognise that phone >>> directories are much rarer than they were a few decades ago. The Bell >>> Centennial, we may deduce with logic and a tiny spark of inspiration, was >>> the default font in the telephone book. >>> >>> In a way, quizzing in India is a minor triumph of intellectual culture, a >>> small but stubborn efflorescence in a largely arid landscape. It is not >>> difficult to suppose that quizzing evolved in this manner as a clear >>> rejection of the banality of rote learning that schools and universities >>> require. Quizzing was steered in this direction by, and now regularly >>> absorbs, people hungering for a different, more capacious form of >> learning. >>> The best quizzes reward lateral and imaginative thinking; they treat, >> with >>> noble seriousness, pursuits that India considers frivolous: movies, or >>> science fiction, or heavy metal; they like to ask “how” or “why”, rather >>> than “what” or “when”; they encourage wide and eccentric reading, reading >>> that is its own joy. Not coincidentally, these are all attributes that >> have >>> been stripped right out of our system of education. >>> >>> I like to believe that Indian quizzing has somehow found its way to a >> truly >>> organic model of knowledge. Recall is artificial, almost mechanical, in >> its >>> dredging-out of half-forgotten items of information. How much more >> natural >>> it feels to connect disparate facts from disparate fields, to rely on a >>> combination of intuition and memory, and to be part of a team’s >> cooperative >>> thinking. And how much more exciting! Few people, I suspect, walk out of >>> our country’s board exams — or, for that matter, out of the average >>> European quiz — burning with the desire to go right back home and hit the >>> books. A good Indian quiz, though, inspires and invigorates. It leaves us >>> humming with anticipation — about new things to read or watch or listen >> to, >>> unfamiliar subjects to learn, and fresh waters to explore. >> >>
