I sent the following email to Mr. Landers, columnist for the Dallas
Morning News. His was the excellent pro-metric column that Paul
trusten sent to all of us.
Regards,
Bill Hooper
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mr. Landers:
I appreciate very much your expressing your views on the metric
system ("Resisting metric system puts us kilometers behind"). I am a
strong proponent of the US going metric completely and as fast as
possible.
Your cute little "quiz", printed with your article, however, is very
misleading. The heading asks "Do you speak metric?" and then proceeds
to ask questions that having nothing to do with knowing metric. All
the question ask about how big a series of olde English units are.
That's a quiz about the old English units, not about metric! A
European or Chinese, or Brazilian, all of whom know the metric system
quite well, would be unlikely to be able to answer those questions. I
am a Certified Advanced Metric Specialist (CAMS) and I'm not sure I
could answer more than 1 or 2 of those questions accurately without
looking it up or making a series of calculations.
A more realistic metric quiz would ask questions like the following
(answers below):
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1. How many grams are there in a kilogram?
2. Which of the following metric units is used to measure volume or
capacity?
volts
litres
metres
kilograms
watts
3. What is the boiling point of water in degrees Celsius?
4. Which of the following might reasonably be a kilometre long?
The length of an Olympic swimming pool.
The distance a child walks from home to school
The width of a human hair.
The distance across the Atlantic Ocean
The height of a flag pole
5. What kind of quantity is measured in milligrams?
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Now THOSE are questions about the metric system.
Your quiz was entirely on the single skill of converting values in
the olde English system to metric. Not only does that not measure
one's understanding of metric, it also promotes the idea that
metrication means converting all sorts of measurements from old
English to metric. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Converting values from one system to another is an advanced skill,
that certain specialists may need, but will not be needed at all by
the vast majority of people. For most people, knowing how to do it
would be a useless skill.
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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Make It Simple; Make It Metric!
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The answers to my quiz are:
1. 1000 g
2. litres
3. 100 °C
4. distance to school
5. mass ("Weight" might be accepted because, while not exactly
correct, technically, "weight" is sometimes used to mean mass.)
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