Saturday, March 28, 2020

Bach essays

Bach essays Bachs Concerto for Harpsichord exhibits many features that are common in the first movements of Classical concerto forms. The movement begins with an orchestral exposition, all in tonic, in which a soft opening theme leads to a transitional tutti in measure 12. A light cadential theme is then heard from the orchestra, followed by a closing tutti in measure 24-43. The soloist then restates this in embellished form, being joined occasionally by the orchestra in measures 44-58, embroidering the transitional tutti with runs and turns as seen in measures 59-71, and then introducing a secondary theme on the dominant in measure 71. The light cadential theme of the orchestral exposition (measure 25) fuels an imaginatively elaborated closing section, in measures 85-105, to which the earlier closing tutti adds a final mark of punctuation in measure 106-114. Here, instead of developing these ideas as in a normal classical concerto, Bach plays on different tonal levels with a new idea intr oduced by the keyboard. In measure 146, the recapitulation is dominated by the solo instrument, omitting the keyboards second theme, and going directly from the now familiar transitional tutti to the graceful closing theme in measure 171. This is done nicely to extend to reach the six-four chord that announces the cadenza seen in measure 191, after which the closing tutti energetically ends the movement. This was a blend of the ritornello-solo structure of the Baroque concerto and the formal exposition, elaboration or excursion, and recapitulation of the symphonic allegro. The tutti now has discrete functions within a deliberate scheme of thematic and tonal contrast, and the solos, though still free and fanciful, are anchored in the principal thematic substance. (NAWM pg. 92) ...

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Why Iq Tests Dont Test Intelligence Essays - Psychometrics

Why Iq Tests Don't Test Intelligence Essays - Psychometrics Why Iq Tests Don't Test Intelligence Why IQ tests don't test intelligence The task of trying to quantify a persons intelligence has been a goal of psychologists since before the beginning of this century. The Binet-Simon scales were first proposed in 1905 in Paris, France and various sorts of tests have been evolving ever since. One of the important questions that always comes up regarding these tools is what are the tests really measuring? Are they measuring a persons intelligence? Their ability to perform well on standardized tests? Or just some arbitrary quantity of the persons IQ? When examining the situations around which these tests are given and the content of the tests themselves, it becomes apparent that however useful the tests may be for standardizing a groups intellectual ability, they are not a good indicator of intelligence. To issue a truly standardized test, the testing environment should be the same for everyone involved. If anything has been learned from the psychology of perception, it is clear that a persons environment has a great deal to do with their cognitive abilities. Is the light flickering? Is the paint on the walls an unsettling shade? Is the temperature too hot or too cold? Is the chair uncomfortable? Or in the worst case, do they have an illness that day? To test a persons mind, it is necessary to utilize their body in the process. If everyones body is placed in different conditions during the testing, how is it expected to get standardized results across all the subjects? Because of this assumption that everyone will perform equally independent of their environment, intelligence test scores are skewed and cannot be viewed as standardized, and definitely not as an example of a persons intelligence. It is obvious that a persons intelligence stems from a variety of traits. A few of these that are often tested are reading comprehension, vocabulary, and spatial relations. But this is not all that goes into it. What about physical intelligence, conversational intelligence, social intelligence, survival intelligence, and the slew of others that go into everyday life? Why are these important traits not figured into intelligence tests? Granted, normal standardized tests certainly get predictable results where academics are concerned, but they should not be considered good indicators of general intelligence because of the glaring omissions they make in the testing process. To really gauge a persons intelligence, it would be necessary to put them through a rigorous set of real-life trials and document their performance. Otherwise the standardized IQ tests of today are testing an extremely limited quality of a persons character that can hardly be referred to as intelligence. For the sake of brevity, I will quickly mention a few other common criticisms of modern IQ tests. They have no way to compensate for cultural differences. People use different methods to solve problems. Peoples reading strategies differ. Speed is not always the best way to tackle a problem. There is often too much emphasis placed on vocabulary. Each of these points warrants individual treatment, and for more information refer to The Triarchic Mind by RJ Sternberg (Penguin Books, 1988, p18-36). It is possible to classify all the reasons that IQ tests fail at their task into two main groups. The first grouping is where the tests assume too much. Examples of this flaw are the assumption that speed is always good, vocabulary is a good indicator of intelligence, and that different test taking environments wont affect the outcome. The second grouping comes because the tests gauge the wrong items. Examples of this are different culture groups being asked to take the same tests as everyone else, and the fact that the tests ignore so many types of intelligence (like physical, social, etc). These two groupings illustrate where the major failings of popular IQ tests occur and can be used as tools for judging others. IQ tests are not good indicators for a persons overall intelligence, but as their use has shown, they are extremely helpful in making predictions about how a person will perform in an academic setting. Perhaps the problem comes in the name intelligence tests when it is obvious this is not what they really are. The modern IQ test definitely has its applications in todays society but should be be used to quantify a persons overall intelligence by any means.