Word: context
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...quantification of this student performance into grade points obscures the fact that the assignation of these objective-seeming scores is always relative to some context and to some philosophy of how best to compare students' worth. Should grades be calculated relative to others students in the class, to those in other classes, or to those in the whole school? And should they follow any statistical bell curve pattern, or is anomaly to be expected from such an unnaturally high-quality population of competitors? This is what the grade inflation debate should be about...
Using rave notices to sell a movie, of course, is nothing new, and even the most thoughtful critics can sound woozy when their adjectives are taken out of context and reproduced in 80-point type. What has changed is the aggressiveness of the studio publicity people and the willingness of many critics to cooperate with them. Publicists used to wait until reviews were actually printed or aired before picking out quotes. Now they call ahead to get the reviews faxed or excerpts read to them. Some critics will provide blurbs on the spot -- either on the phone or at junkets...
...larger issues, a macro-drama. It may have involved religion in more political form. The arrest of a 25-year-old Muslim named Mohammed Salameh raised the specter that the bombing of Manhattan's World Trade Center was perhaps a terrorist act of intense cultural symbolism, framed in religious context. And it brought serious terrorism across the American threshold for the first time...
...biology. Familiar images of punctuated equilibrium, evolutionary contingency and the metaphorical Galton's polyhedron that on strains the evolution are all present in sterling form lot evidence, Gould draws on his extraordinary knowledge of biology, introducing the reader to an incredible array of fascinating facts, sometimes embarrassing in their context Describing a herring's gas expulsions out an orifice next to the anus, he gleefully calls them "herring farts...
Still, Rudenstine refused to agree with the flyer's characterization of Mansfield's remarks as "racist." "I really can't attribute, and wouldn't attribute, an attitude to Professor Mansfield, and I don't even know the context in which he was speaking." Rudenstine said. "I think he's a person who analyzes situations as he sees them. He gave an analysis. I don't have to agree with...