Beak Gate............credit Where It's Due....

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-44467991
The question was not, "what is another name for a humming birds beak" - it was .....
http://www.thenational.scot/news/16291426.Poll__What_is_another_name_for_a_hummingbird_s_beak_/
So I think this was a bit unfair on the Wee un.

[Jackdaw33]

I quite agree. 5 year olds would have struggled to understand the question, let alone answer it. Why do you think I got out of teaching ASAP?

[ToraToraTora]

the question was nothing to do with the hummingbird really; "The humming bird has a thin beak, what is another word for a beak?" - Bill.

[Jackdaw33]

Pity 'magistrate' was not one of the options.

[gulliver1]

" IQs have fallen by seven points per generation" J/D was a teacher?

[Zacs-Master]

I think JD taught by rote rather than using questions to see whether a child can cut out the superfluous elements in them and thereby identify the ‘thinkers’ from the ‘learners’.

[jno]

it was a multichoice question. The child had to choose from three options - skin, bill or body. The man from Labour omitted to mention this.

So in essence it was asking what part of a hummingbird is the beak. I could have answered that at five. I'm sorry to hear it's driving Scottish toddlers to suicide.

[Zacs-Master]

The question was even simpler than that. It was ‘what is another word for beak’. The hummingbird was the superfluous part.

[ToraToraTora]

yes the humming bird is irrelevant

[Spicerack]

I got it.

[Peter Pedant]

// bit unfair on the Wee un.//

coo yeah dat foo! ....

( sorry that was written in free-tee-speak)

[Peter Pedant]

// The hummingbird was the superfluous part.//

the idea of a good one-liner is that nothing should be superfluous

I went to Philadlphia once - but it was closed !

o god this isnt about one-liners it is about something else.
the hummingbird bit is called a distractor
and the idea is to get the children to filter out irrelevance as a skill. Those who did O levels ( now deceased ) will find this odd as the rule then was that extraneous info irrelevant to the answer was 'unfair' to the candidates

[youngmafbog]

I get the question in the OP but not PP's post I'm afraid :-(

Usual 2 decide to have a dig at another poster rather than participate in the thread I see. Just another day on AB!

[douglas9401]

Yet again a politician climbs upon his high horse to deliver a crushing blow to an opponent only to be left looking like a big hairy unwashed lady garden when their cleverness receives cursory examination.

These lying, scheming knobs DEMAND respect y'know.

[Jackdaw33]

Visual aids have always been important in teaching, especially younger children. A hummingbird was chosen but it could easily have been a duck. A hummingbird might be superfluous but a bird would not be.