"Tom" wrote in message
6.253...
"Bill Grey" wrote in
:
"Tom" wrote in message
6.253...
wrote in :
I've commented elsewhere about primary teachers not
knowing what 1+2*3 is, and on the disappearance of
calculus from GCSE/O-level maths
The Calculus was never part of "O" level maths in 1952 unfortunately.
Maybe, maybe not.
In 1974 it was on some, but certainly not all, syllabuses
(syllabi? 
When doing A-level double maths, we did many questions from
past papers back to the early '50s. We felt the questions
from those papers were more difficult than those from the
more recent exams.
All of which is another reason why I'm loathe to presume
that there is necessarily a wholesale dumbing down of content.
I feel that training everywhere has been dumbed down. I did my Radio and
Radar Training in the Royal Navy in 1958 and it was very deep. I was given a
conducted tour of the Royal Navy's Radio and Radar Training facilities at
the Maritime Warfare School at H.M.S.Collingwood earlier on last year and
things are certainly easier, BUT, it has to be because the technical content
now is to a certain degree, 'identify the PCB which is faulty and chuck it'.
I was with one of the Officers who is one of the Radar Lecturers the other
night at a function and I raised this chuck it syndrome and he explained
that with the manufacture of the boards being so complex, they cannot be
repaired. Fortunately, the training is deep enough to at least identify what
and where.
Mike
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Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive
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