Sunday, December 31, 2006

The great Dan Moffett Army aptitude test challenge

I just sent the email below to Dan Moffett, one of the editorial writers for the Palm Beach Post. In THIS ARTICLE Dan characterizes Army aptitude test results in a very deceptive manner by stating:
Mr. Chu has admitted that about 40 percent of recruits the past two years scored in the bottom half of the military's aptitude test.

------------ email to Moffett -----------

Your recent characterisation of the Army aptitude test results appears to be deceptive.

When I took the test back in 1977' a passing score was in the range of about 9 out of 100 (or maybe 7/100, I've forgotten after all these years). I aced it back then, scoring a perfect 100 which was virtually unheard of.

Having only a M.S. degree in the sciences, I realize my analytical ability is of course limited compared to that of a vaunted omniscient "journalist". However, that range of acceptable scores suggests to my vastly inferior mind that perhaps, just perhaps, this test is designed to distribute recruits directly onto a normal curve and that 40% falling under the 50% mark is in fact an indicator that maybe the Army's recruits are actualy better than the population in general.

What do you think Dan? Apply some of that journalistic atom splitting mind power and let me know.

Here's a challenge to you. Why don't you take that test and report on your results? That would certainly establish your cred and "moral authority" to be making judgmental comments about it.

In fact, why don't we both take it at the same time.
I'll blog the event for the whole world when we square off. Are you game? I am, and I'm serious as a heart attack about it. I'll make sure all the high profile milbloggers (Black 5, GreyHawk, Mudville Gazette, etc) get a feed on the results. Of course you can contribute whatever you want to the blog text of the story and I promise not to censor or edit a single word of what you have to say and I further promise to link any followup article you write for the Post.

Just say the word and I'll make it happen. I'm going to blog about this anyway, so you might as well take this opportunity to defend yourself.

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